There is value in a demitasse,

a young girl clings

to the edge of a round

table, her skirt a sparrow

fluttering before her children’s coffee

(color of a soft caramel)

she will learn to sip,

apply sugar with a spoon (size of a doll’s)

accept only one chocolate even

though they are veined, sculpted as oak

leaves, even though there are no oak

leaves here—globes descend from trees,

their bodies spiked, their bodies

their skeletons (pocked) pocketed

into children’s hands who will learn

the art of tossing dead

flowers into Opa’s hair, returning

the days of auburn

to current silver

quick lightning to lips. 

There is value in pewter,

a parent’s spoon too heavy

for a child to lift, to stir what settles

to resolve what remains

two tongues (spoon, lepel)