
Steaming Milk
I lift the cool
Tin pitcher, its handle
Biting to my bones.
Thick cream pervades
Its body, concealing numbered
Scars with silk bandages.
I push its frigid
Bottom up and the warm
Nozzle down, its shaft
Parting compliant flesh,
Thawing its frost.
The tip hits bottom, a ring of
Fire crinkles my palm like paper already
Bursting with milk bubbles
Bubbles toils and troubles, rising
In bursts of banshee screams.
Like shattering glaciers dropping into
Waves of erupting foam and
Volcanic ash as
White-hot lava drips down my
Evaporating hand.
Tin clatters with a satisfying
Sigh, its burden relieved,
Its oppressor wrinkling
Into blackness.