Tea-Cup Poem by Janine Alyssa Navarro

The tea-cup is pale without your fingerprints.
Tissue never meant the same,
without you being around to wipe my nightly sweat with them.

I made you nervous, but you used to smile like you do in pictures
I didn’t know that would be the last time I would see you.
Helplessness becomes me; I leave the lamp on.

You often spoke of Tolstoy as you licked stamps.
Words were warriors, runners, athletes;
but like all things, they were pilferers of your treasure.

The sink calls on you, wash them now as they pile up
but I forgot that you were gone.
This bed is unmade, face unwashed. I refuse to move.