DIANA ROSEN—Two Poems

How to Make Tea

It could be

how to make tea means

paying attention

to water, to leaf, to cup.

In the Chinese way, we use

a guywan, a covered cup

filled with

beautiful leaves, spring water

heated to

just the right temperature

poured in circles

to saturate each leaf.

After steeping

at just enough time,

the brewed tea is poured

into waiting cups for a taste,

delicate, ambrosial,

a scent like sweet jasmine

or caramel

or fresh mown hay

a taste surprising

no matter how often

tea is made.

Mitzvah Man

He’s never told me, I love you. To him,

love is a word fraught with pain - - a word

parents used to justify familial

abuse -- not tenderness, deep connection;

certainly, never, trust. He performs daily

mitzvahs -- good deeds -- picks up litter, mulches

roses in the city garden, heirloom

beauties whose scent keeps him calm; buys water

for the mailman and the UPS guy,

fancy fruit ones to boot; brings lunch for his

bike shop friend then inflates thirty tires in

one day to repay kindnesses. You know

how I feel, he says, you don’t need words, but

know this, I thank you, I thank the gods for you!

DIANA ROSEN

DIANA ROSEN is an essayist, poet, and flash writer whose hybrid first full-length book, HIGH STAKES & EXPECTATIONS, is from thetinypublisher.com Her work appears in Rattle, Tiferet Journal, As It Ought to be Magazine among others in the U.K., Australia, India, and Canada and the U.S. She lives and works as a content provider on food and beverage in Los Angeles where her "backyard" is the largest urban greenspace in the country, Griffith Park. To read more of her work, please visit authory.com/dianarosen