In the Morning

Jet lagged, I wake up just in time to watch the full moon set behind the mountains in the west. The sky is still pitch black and filled with stars. Nights here are always star-lit, always a canvas of the universe, but they are breathtaking every time. She writes to tell me of her day, we could just as well be a few blocks apart as a thousand miles.

The coffee seeps in its French press; my father ground the beans last night so I wouldn't have to go without, we know the drill. You'll wake up at five, probably. When I was little and we had just returned from Australia that first time, we would hear one another stir in the middle if the dark January night and soon would all be up for a midnight breakfast of tea and toast. That memory soothes me year after year. We are travelers. I pull out the gallon jug of milk, so American in its weighty essence and scratch the rash on my arm. My body processes where my mind cannot. 

Burn it all to the ground. 

Start over.