Hot tea on a warm morning;
the morning breaks, slowly.

This mug is chipped, some
rustic clay, hand-painted

in Mexico.  A cartoon
humpback hovers over

an azure ocean, laid down
cleanly in one brush-stroke.

Beside El Arco de Cabo
San Lucas, thin thoughts

of birds fly in front of
a lacquered orange sun.

If drawn with beaks they
might intone truth is beauty,

but out of the mouth of these
birds more likely a complaint:

the heavy glaze has glued
their wings to the rock

formation, forever denies
the curling white wave

the relief of finally
breaking.