This poem only available on Stories Space. If you are reading it elsewhere, it has been stolen.

A coffee cup in a coffee shop,
Clean white china,
Round and perfect.

"Pick me," it smiles,
A wink and clink
A-beckoning the cold traveller
With her scarf hiding her face.

"I can't afford you, coffee cup,"
The weary wanderer
Whispers through the stripes,
And her hand reaches for her little purse.
Just a few coins,
Just enough,
Perhaps,
To kiss the cup.

The door opens as people flood out;
Business men in business suits
Let the essence of exotic beans
Tinge the air with
Velvet brown.

The coffee cup sends
Tendrils of smoky aroma
Dancing through the chilly, chiding air
Towards her
As she clutches her few coins
In her cold, lonely hands.

She whispers through the stripes
Against the closing door,
"I can't really afford you, coffee cup..."

Another winking clink,
And the coffee cup beckons.

"Oh, come now, little one,
I'm only small.
I'm not important, and I'm not grande.
I'm just a little latte cup,
And I will let you
Warm your hands upon my sides
And give you steamy smoothness
To warm your heart."

She sighs through her stripes
And she enters the coffee shop
And stands by the counter
And looks at the cup
And looks at her few coins
In her cold lonely hands
And holds them out.

"It's all I have,
Have I got enough?"

And the coffee cup nods
And is filled with espresso
And infused with steaming milk
And laced with froth
And given to her.

She carefully carries the coffee cup
To a table in the corner,
And she turns her back on the windows
Where passersby cannot watch her
Kiss the coffee cup with guilty lips
And taste the essence of its warmth.

"I gave my last few coins for you, coffee cup,"
She says.

The coffee cup smiles up
And shines a mellow, frothy smile at her.

She removes her stripes and shows her face,
Sad and lonely and pinched with cold.

Lands of white steaming miniature bubbles
Form magical glittering peaks and valleys
That grace the deep flavoursome liquid beneath.

She picks up the coffee cup with trembling hands,
And kisses the edge with her cold lips.

Molten white velvet cushions against her mouth,
Giving way to molten brown velvet smoke
As the scalding coffee rushes over her tongue
And pours bitter-smooth liquid into her.

Hot, steaming flavour
Meets cold, lonely tastebuds
And scours their feeling away
As hot, baking china
Meets cold, lonely fingers
And brings their feeling back.

She kisses the cup
Again and again,
Stirring a spoon to rescue the froth
Left clinging to the edge,
Before it bakes onto the china
And is left as a crusting smear of old stains.

"Coffee cup, I gave all I had,
And I have enjoyed you immensely,"
She says
As she looks at the last tepid dregs
In the bottom of the coffee cup.

"That's nice,"
Says the coffee cup.
"Is that all?
Have you no more use for me?"

"I would have you filled anew, coffee cup,"
She says,
"Again and again
And again and again,
But alas, I have no coins left to fill you so."

"Then why sit you here,
Looking at me?"
The coffee cup asks airily,
Its china dull and rattling.
"What use have I for such as you,
With no coins and such a miserable face?"

She looks glumly down,
And sighs.

"Coffee cup,
Must we say goodbye?"
She foolishly asks,
Wasting foolish time.

"I think we must,
For you have emptied me,
And have nothing with which to fill me anew,"
The coffee cup tells her dully.

And it turns its side to her
With its handle pointing away.

She looks at the last dregs
In the bottom of the coffee cup,
And cannot lift it one last time
To kiss the cup and
Drain it dry.

She looks glumly down
And sighs
As she covers her face with her stripes once again.

The coffee cup sits there
On the table in the corner
With its back blandly to her.

And she stands up
Alone
And she pushes the chair beneath the table
And she whispers into the empty air.

"Thank you for everything."

She makes her way through the shop,
Through the exit into the street,
And she hears the door close loudly and firmly.

The coffee cup sits alone on the table,
Dregs drying,
Cold and rattling,
And knows that soon
It will be filled anew and kissed by richer lips.

And she...

She walks alone in the street,
Hurrying home with
An empty purse
And nothing to give,
And nothing to show
Save the faint memory of molten velvet brown's soul
Clinging to her clothes
And the brief memory of smoky smoothness
Scalding her tongue
And baking china warming her lonely, empty hands
For just a few minutes of her life.

This poem only available on Stories Space. If you are reading it elsewhere, it has been stolen.