I'll have to wash dishes soon

I left
those last two cups of tea
untouched on the windowsill
where we placed them
unthinking, during conversation
as long as I decently could
before moving them, grudging
to a corner
of the kitchen table
then to the wide beach beside
the deep white enamel sink
feeling irrationally upset
when flotsam and spindrift
from subsequent lone meals
eaten in crashing silence
began to clutter round them;

I'll have to wash dishes soon,
remove last cooled traces of
your lips cupped around them,
hang them back on their hooks,
but for now, even overtaken
by a growing heap of crockery
I still pick them out at a glance.