Like That ...

It's like

when you think

the cup is empty

but you lift it

anyway,

tilting it toward

your mouth,

and a solitary drop

comes rolling

off the bottom,

goes bounding

onto your tongue

so now you really taste

the flavor of it,

far greater

than the rest

of what you've drunk,

and it quenches

the thirst of memory,

lying there

long afterward,

most valued

because there is

no more.

© 1999

(originally published in the Palo Alto Review; subsequently nominated for Pushcart Prize honors)

We enter this poem with something having been said before our arrival. But we tune in to it, for who hasn't absently lifted the cup and been surprised by the bitterness, or the ultra-sweetness, of that last drop?

The poem speaks of the obvious, but it also speaks of endings, partings, loss ... and happiness ... those good memories that come to our rescue when we need them most.