A Kitchen at Six

A KITCHEN AT SIX The kettle knows before I do that the day has started, clearing its throat on the stove like a small brass bishop. Outside, the street is still deciding what colour it is. The cat has decided: the colour of the warm chair. Upstairs, the house is breathing in three different rhythms, none of them in time, all of them mine. I butter the toast slowly, the way you hold a door for someone you can hear but cannot see yet. In an hour the radio, the shoes, the lost glove, the bus that will not wait. For now: the kettle, the light on the bread knife, and one cup, steaming, exactly where I left it.