he is waiting for the porridge to cool down

while I expect the thickness of the morning

to dissipate. only one of us will get what they

want. in a light-second he’ll ask what’s wrong.

I may have to explain that he is just a comet,

like many others before him whose fires

I chased since the nights got cold. I dissolve

his sugar in my tea. I speak of things that exist

even further away instead, like neutron stars;

hoping he understands what it means to bear

the density of loss, how every meal is a séance.

he doesn’t, he pours the milk. our table is a black

hole that swallows everything: grief, breakfast, love —