I welcome your minute manipulations
how your simple glance causes me to rise
from my oak chair and ruminations
to fill your cup that has no more than a drop
of cold black coffee.

Grateful for your routine manipulations
of a mind muddied by past resentments,
the always blue dreams that defy explanation,
forcing my hand to stroke your lounging legs
on the way to the kitchen.

Blessed by these familiar manipulations
for it is not you that provokes a willing servitude
it is that space where our nearing breaths conspire
to spin motes of dust and sloughed off skin
displaced by a kiss and a hot cup of coffee.