Ode to a White Coffee Cup

O white porcelain hemisphere,
O quotidian receptacle
of caffeinated elixirs!
Do you comfort me
with your fragility,
or mock me
with such extreme perfection?

Your inscrutable translucency
belongs to paper rooms
where soft voices
murmur haiku.
What are you doing here,
nestled in my palms?
How do I own you?

My life is a maelstrom
of delayed decisions
and unruly possessions
chosen for riotous colour.
They vie for my attention,
occupying my mind
with their clamour
and keeping me sane.

And yet it is you I need
to begin each crazy day,
with your calm whiteness
and irritating superiority.
The scents of coffee
are never so tantalizing
as when they come
from your depths.

Your profound roundness,
and the zen of your sheen,
the sensation of
the hot liquid flowing
over your cold rim:
these are the things
I strive each day
to live up to.
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This ode was written as part of Akiko Busch's Reading Design Class