Poem: We Shall Drink Black Tea

We Shall Drink Black Tea

By Deniz Zeynep
QuailBellMagazine.com

and leave the dredges to tell us
fortunes of a bottomless Paradise
where the Priestess rules the rim
and the Hermit roams the saucer.

We shall not escape our porcelain paradise.
We will etch ourselves into the walls
along with sinews of vines
and gauzy veils scripting
stories of fluttering mevlana
who cast a breeze
onto our silent lips.

Pray for our kohl-soaked sockets,
where our closed eyes leave us
an abyss
of shrouded sisters.
Pray for our scrubbed hands,
that become constellations guiding
shunned suns searching
for their twilight nuns.

Deniz is an over-20-something writer who believes a good quote and a solid pair of boots will get you far, or at least give you enough sole till tomorrow. She was a poetry student at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where she began to combine her love of word play with her Turkish background. You will find her roaming around Richmond with a pen hidden behind her ear, ready to splice a verse Hattori Hanzō-style.