The Truth About Tigers

The newborn winter sky,
driftwood-gray and heavy with mist,
fosters a strange kind of contentment—
a feeling that brushes
the edge of melancholy
yet never settles there.

To call this weather bad
feels like a failure of perspective.
It simply is.
So I lean into it,
letting it press
somewhere beneath my ribcage.

The porcelain mug
contrasts with mud-brown coffee;
its aroma mingles softly
with incense
and muted conversation.

Heat trembles at the surface—
molecules gather courage
to rise into air,
a quiet departure
joining the endless cycle:
dissolution, reformation,
death folding into rebirth.

I suspect, secretly,
we know how they feel,
or at least long to.

As I raise the warm cup,
a homeless man shuffles by,
tattered blankets
trailing through frosty puddles.
His sudden, hollow presence
pulls at the edges
of my fragile equanimity.

I wonder if guilt
can exist without responsibility,
or if responsibility,
however delegated or denied,
lurks in the quiet corners
of our collective comfort.