Steaming Milk

I lift the cool

Tin pitcher, its handle

Biting to my bones.

Thick cream pervades

Its body, concealing numbered

Scars with silk bandages.

I push its frigid

Bottom up and the warm

Nozzle down, its shaft

Parting compliant flesh,

Thawing its frost.

The tip hits bottom, a ring of

Fire crinkles my palm like paper already

Bursting with milk bubbles

Bubbles toils and troubles, rising

In bursts of banshee screams.

Like shattering glaciers dropping into

Waves of erupting foam and

Volcanic ash as

White-hot lava drips down my

Evaporating hand.

Tin clatters with a satisfying

Sigh, its burden relieved,

Its oppressor wrinkling

Into blackness.