every Sunday I make breakfast
eggs with bacon or sausage
or with tomatoes
an Italian style Turkish breakfast dish
olives usually
sometimes honey for the bread
though I like to dip it in yolk
orange juice
and coffee laced with Baileys
I sit later
a second cup of coffee in hand
and can’t stop the memories
one cropping up mostly lately
of a girl who called me poppa
lived in my house for a while
would get up early each morning
to make me breakfast
Korean style
her smile so sweet, gentle
her eyes filled
I know now just as I knew then
with love
but I chose to not notice
being older then than I am now
and convinced it could not work
no future, I thought
as if I could decide those things
and years later
bits and pieces of her
and those breakfasts
the way she would play music I lent her
in her room all night
and though we rarely talked
she would send these incredibly long emails
telling me about her day
the things the music said to her
her future plans
and encouraged by me
she returned to Korea
to design clothes for other women
and to make breakfast for another man
years ago that was
but time has not faded the memory
and she eventually crept her way
into my books
she in part became a character
and a life almost lived
found its way to live between pages
a poor substitute perhaps
but the way things go in fiction
and now a trace of sadness
as I think of those breakfasts
that smile
life in another dimension
so very far from my own