The Journey Back

his shadow falls soft, cold on his hot coffee mug, and dawn is but a crimson promise of her hug; his gaze explores the pattern on the tablecloth, flowery symmetry of a butterfly or a moth, as his forefinger traces absent-mindedly the rim of a lotus leaf, tip of a lily; from far away she has sworn that she will be here, so he drifts, remembering, a little house where, with the windows open and the breeze blowing right, one can taste the salt air, smell the sea in the night; here is where the reason for the journey back lies, quite far, a hundred miles away as the crow flies.