Ring around
the rim
a tea-stained
history

waking up & putting the
water on to boil

a new day viewed on old computers

coffee instead of tea

finding an escape from lines of houses

going to sleep past your bedtime

no, it was just an ordinary day
no idea of suburban choke
no way out of a street named after a
president whose name sounds
like a candy.

no, it was building in routine
the time it takes to travel to from a lab &
back & to sweep the floor of a church
for an extra hundred dollars a week.

no, it was growing up, or growing out
remodeling a railway that died in the
sixties, keeping track of hockey players stats
cards that consoled when lined up

and never running away from shadows

the track shifted &
connected to a refinery, a plant
to process the sweet particles
for children's confections

a before & after image

his model railway had
stopped running--plastic people
frozen, dust collecting on their
caps--the times tables
redrawn

nine years since the meltdown

watching time pass in piles of snow

the long weekend, enhanced by snowfall

a disruption, days change meaning, zodiac signs
2,ooo years off in the sky determine
my daily, readable mood

scooped with tea, while waiting for channels to change

a silent sky of snow falls like static, muted

Caught on my tongue, words melt.

START/END

Sugar, when five pounds piled, looks like snow but tastes sweeter.