I learned how to make tea in the wake
of bad news, to steep each day’s tragedy
for three minutes so it might shed a little heat,
brew into something less bitter.

When I told my parents my marriage was dead,
my mother filled the kettle. “I’ll make tea,”
she said, shooed us both into the dining room.
We waited wordless to the clatter of cups

and saucers arranged on a tray, the rumble
of the kettle. We waited quiet inside ourselves
so shock might steep into a sorrow cool enough
to share. Years later, my kitchen’s in a country

where the tea is fruit-flavored, swigged icy
from a bottle. But I hold the line, make tea
as the tragedies jostle for attention, some small
and spike-backed, others gargantuan: a spin

of kids bombed limbless; my basement backed up
with sewage; two dogs surrendered to a full shelter,
its manager crying in the cat room. I fill the kettle,
drop a tea bag in a cup and wait for the water

to boil, for the images to soften in its steam.
I breathe, pour and stir, imagine kids paddling
in the Mediterranean, a dry basement,
two dogs twitch-dreaming, safe on their blankets.