31. Irish Breakfast Tea

Mom bought me a pound of C.S. Lewis Tea:

“Irish Breakfast tea blend, bold black tea

from India’s Assam region.”

 

In the years when her cancer seemed gone,

I could drink it straight. When it returned,

I let that tea linger

 

in the back of my pantry

while I sipped easier blends—

 

white tea with peach

green tea with ginger

red tea with vanilla.

 

Now that cancer has steeped itself throughout her body,

I can drink the steaming brew at breakfast,

swallowing the darkness whole.