Loneliness
by James McLean
Little tea cup, were you happy on the shelf?
Now a thousand pieces on the floor
little tea cup, please forgive me
thousand pieces now forget me.
Time goes slowly–
This new tea cup a thing of beauty I declare
with joy both fleeting and rare. Now lonely
as a tea cup needing tea I’ll brew
some tea for us to pass time, gaze
while you whisper
I have not always been a tea cup.
Tomorrow again I’ll fill the cup
that clears past regrets or future fears
Teacup, say come with me. I am old
and wiser, have one thing certain —
how time evaporates.
***
James McLean was born in Scotland in 1927 and has lived and worked in the DTES since 1960. He is a member of Thursdays Writing Collective and has published in four chapbooks as well as in V6A: Writing from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2012).