Self-Portrait as a Tea Shop
Is it better to be the woman at the counter,
notched-neck priestess? Or better to be a Zhejiang picker
who’s never seen my insides yet fills the jars?
I can’t change the harvest season, leaves dictating supply.
A man arrives, sits stands sits, then another chair,
this one facing east. I encourage workers to be mellow
because that’s the vibe we sell. Can’t stop a daughter’s fingers
thrumming, when her father pushes my front door,
swoosh, mushing the quiet wood walls, wood floors,
wood tables—your mother’s waiting.
Can’t stop today’s eclipse, thirty percent shadows
through floor-to-ceiling windows. Is it better to be glass
barring the rage of day? Better to darken rage like River Puerh’s
earth and silk, a fermented burgundy? I can’t stop one person
from betraying another, like Golden Monkey’s claw-shaped
leaves, chocolate with a citrus finish. Can’t stop poppyseeds
escaping from a cookie, rolling off the table, can’t help
but grumble—slow down—then laugh, while a woman’s forearm
reaches for the teapot. Can’t stop a man typing, clumps of hair,
all that’s left covered by a hoodie—would offer
Clouds and Mist, Yunwu tea tips curled into spirals, buttery smooth.
I can’t stop those dying, cure not within my power. Is it enough—
Is it better to be liquid, adhere to a surface no longer
liquid? Better to be orange-yellow buckwheat’s
criminal nuttiness, or bright green sencha tearing its mouth
from the glass? Better to be bread of the earth in a teapot?
Better to infuse the tongue with bitterness?
.
Laurel Benjamin is a Cider Press Review Book Award finalist. She is active with the Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon, curates Ekphrastic Writers, and is a reader for Common Ground Review. Current and upcoming publication: Lily Poetry Review, Taos Journal of Poetry, Gone Lawn, Nixes Mate, Pirene’s Fountain, Cider Press Review. Pushcart Prize nominee, Laurel holds an MFA from Mills College. She invented a secret language with her brother.
Stone Poetry Quarterly 