The Second Cup

The porch light burned until it didn't.

I kept the kettle warm past midnight,

set two cups out anyway,

a habit of hope.

When the storm took the east fence

and the phone stayed dark in my hand,

I learned the sound of my own voice

calling into a house that held only echoes.

I carried the weight of it alone.

I'm good at that now.

I can lift what was meant for two pairs of arms,

can read the silence like weather,

know by the quiet how long the night will last.

Others came, strangers mostly,

with blankets and casseroles and borrowed courage.

They didn't know my name,

but they knew how to stand beside a person

standing in the wreckage.

And you,

you with all your easy words,

your someday and soon,

your next time, I promise,

where was the hand that knew my hand?

The shoulder I'd have trusted with my weight?

I'm not angry anymore.

Anger takes the kind of fuel

I spent on getting through.

But some evenings

I still set out that second cup,

watch the steam rise and thin and vanish,

and wonder what the hour looked like

from wherever you were standing

when I needed you

to be standing here.