Ritual
So many thousands of times
I’ve filled the kettle with water
365 days 1,460 times a year
x 4 times a day x 50 adult years
_____________ _______________
1,460 times a year 73,000
All those times I’ve filled the kettle,
tugged the lid off the tea canister, and
laid a teabag in one of many mugs that display
a napping cat, a toothy smile, or a sailboat
tacking off the coast of Puerto Rico.
This remembering is all I own
as hot water flows into a mug
over faces dark with steeping.