By Toklas
Date: 18 November 1999

Poetic Maladies

Afflicted with the delights of high tea,
resplendent with its cakes and cremes,
a lover to brush my hand while I pour ancient stories 
into the china cups shared secretly Sunday afternoons.

Later, my whimsical pen sighs, recording
moment by moment our tales of Ceylon journeys—
minarets framed against mystical skies, a garden’s 
budding lotus winding its way along a porcelain rim

Against a painted sky, tea leaves give up there fortunes
Splashing gold and silver on scraps of paper
Gathered like the heart’s harvest—
A sheaf of words, bound by magic strings.