Louise Glück

Louise Glück remembers stopping at a Starbucks
with her mother
on the way to school every Monday.

She’d begin each week with hot chocolate - 
the bustle of the cafe like the murmur of the congregation at prayer -
and her mother, as loving as she was overbusy,
flitting around her Monday morning;
fluttering at the edges of her life.

Starbucks was a bribe;
it became a ritual.

Now her mother is only a memory - 
and a child’s memory, at that -
but she can still buy hot chocolate at every streetcorner Starbucks.

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