"Being Human/Temporary"

For a moment, the mere nectar of my cup

becomes that bitter human brew

of tea and sugar and milk and I rejoice

because I finally feel divine.

For a moment, the muse sits idle

at the window, not singing or dreaming

or hoping for something new but

taking the day off, leaving the halls

of my mind for me alone to wander.

And in that moment of transformation,

of coffee and tea and bitterness,

and peaches and spoons that measure nothing,

and the sea-girls safely nestled

in the crests of waves,

Poe and Stevenson

and Yeats and Cummings

and Dickinson and Neruda

fall from my mind and they are gone,

leaving a poet alone with her morning,

no pen, no ink, no paper,

and her mortal, fleeting thoughts.