I have been looking at a certain cup for many days
The cup has revealed little of itself, in fact nothing
The cup cannot be blamed, I have asked nothing of it
If asked myself, then, I could say little about the cup
It is white, it is large, yesterday it contained, today nothing
It is not animate, it moves when I move it
It is mine, no one owned it before me,
and I will not relinquish it until it is broken
All I can say of the cup is what I have inscribed upon it
in my self-serving yet also cup-serving manner
It is the cup of midnight, the cup of birth, the cup of time passing
It is the cup of Soupy Sales, the cup of scratching, the cup of reading
But my monikers fall flat
They fall to the table before the silence of the cup
I have observed this silence
and yet I would never call it a trait
I have observed this silence
and in so observing have been silent myself
and in so being silent have served little but the will to be silent
And yet my mind might say otherwise
One thing I will note about the cup
is that it acts upon you
even if the acting is forgotten the instant it occurs
It makes you do things, unlike most humans, who you pass as if asleep
You fill it, you empty it, you return it to the sink, you may wash it
You may run your finger along its side
as if up a thigh
And when you speak of the cup, you correct yourself
You say yet, you say what you really meant was,
you say words are failing you,
you end mid-sentence, you cough, you apologize
It is almost as if the motion you seek by speaking,
for when we speak we move,
were a non-movement
It is almost as if you had a “thing” for the cup,
as if you didn’t feel quite yourself in its presence
Which is acceptable, in the main
because what we learn through talking about the cup, through writing about it,
through living with the cup in its exquisite plainness,
is that all things said about it are all right,
fine for now, fine perhaps for eternity
provided the right readers are awake