When you add cream to your coffee there is
a moment of storm beneath the surface,
the possibility of a sinner
planting a kiss on the gates of heaven,
a string of cloud floating in the old well
before the clanging and swirling spoon drains
all of our hopes into the great brown ditch.
And yet this kind of hope can only live
in a moment. The young communist’s dream
before Stalin’s moustache crawls into his
trousers, mercilessly scratching his thighs;
the trust of the promising acolyte
before the moat-like grimace of a priest
separates her from yet another heart.

Are we fortunate that these hopes are killed?
If spared, would they become fanatical?
In death our hope finds its resurrection.
On your very worst days you can journey
to that hope, visiting it for a while;
it will greet you in fashionable clothes,
humming as it prepares a drink for you.
I went there today and came back ready
for the suffering, that’s what hope can do.
The magic splash of half & half will blend
into the drudgery of ritual,
the memory of a sparkling hope
shimmers as voices try to coarsen you.
To those who once shared hope with me, let’s meet
there tomorrow, we shall hold hands, our grip
so strong it can only last a moment.

Benjamin Schmitt is the Elgin Award-nominated author of four books, most recently The Saints of Capitalism. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Sojourners, Antioch Review, The MacGuffin, Hobart, Columbia Review, Spillway, and elsewhere. A co-founder of Pacifica Writers’ Workshop, he lives in Seattle with his wife and children.