rework

Vespers

What were you chanting  

from down the dry well

of our German coffee maker? 

A brusque Gute Nacht masking

the finesse required to defeat

the hinged plastic lid?

Begging bus fare

for the Silk Road

transparent,

even without mornings

bracing first cup.

A caution, then? 

Don’t leave bags unattended?

Know the warning signs of stroke?

Sleep like a baby, use two-step

authentication?

Your cloistered solitude,

fringed bulb of abdomen

whispered tonsure,

solitary choirmaster dwarfed

by cathedral walls

soaring graduated

into heavenly gloom

where I hovered on high,

my nightly routine

to summon The Flood,

deigning to lower

a spoon of salvation

while you wove a gossamer

chorale,  

working

the eight tiny shuttles

of your batons.