Saturation Point

The incense hung like a heavy gray sheet

over the heads of the family in line.

I stood at the back with the cold in my feet,

tracing the grain of the century-old pine.

They spoke the words with a practiced ease,

a rhythmic, communal, and comforting sound.

I searched for the rhythm, down on my knees,

but my tongue was a dry and a barren ground.

It’s a slow disappearance, a grainy retreat,

like a cube in the tea that you forget to stir.

There’s a faint, lingering taste of the sweet,

but the shape of the thing is a ghost and a blur.