Poetry

Earl Grey

by

Ally Malinenko

It was our day off,
the first in a while, while everyone else
labored through the work week
and I carried the Sunday paper
down to the coffee shop.

You ordered for us,
and gave me the big comfy love seat,
opting for the smaller cushioned straight back chair.

We got earl grey.
It had been awhile since I had that tea.
I got a scone, chocolate chip, in fact,
and I had just said that morning
I never ate breakfast foods with chocolate chips in them.
We ordered a slice of pound cake too,
too much breakfast, but it was that kind of day.
The kind of day you could indulge,
if even for a morning in a coffee shop.

Which was part of the reason
that I chose not to talk about the article
in the magazine
about the man who found out he was adopted
and found out his birth parents stayed together
and had other children
and how happy they all were to know each other, now.

It was my story, re-told.
The bad ending was gone.

Instead I tore the article out.
And you asked me what it was about
and I told you.
But we didn't talk about it.

Later you asked me if I was okay.
And I wasn't.
But I said I was.
Because it was early still,
and the whole day was ahead of us,
and over the years
I had already ruined so many others
in exactly this way.