28 Cups of Coffee

They met at a train station
57 years ago next Tuesday.
He was the love of her life
from the moment she saw him across the room
and she was flustered with excitement
at the mere prospect of even saying hello.

Three hundred and fourteen letters,
twenty-seven packages
15 photographs and two tours later
He returned from the war.
She was there at the station,
too flustered to say hello.

He handed her a small package,
and with a haggard look on his face
he left.
without a word.

She opened the box and realized
when he signed the papers for
"God, Corps, and Country"...
there was no room left for her.

Days turned into weeks,
months turned seasons over
like rocks in a garden
and winter gave way to spring and new life.

Her mother told her she was foolish;
No woman in her right mind needed
twenty-eight coffee cups
and no classy lady of society
woudl dare put up with a man who
so thoughtlessly tossed her aside.

But she kept them packed tightly
in her hope chest,
landmarks of where her lover had been.
Proof that in each country,
]during each battle and in each foxhole,
he was thinking of her.

They were supposed to be his and hers cups,
one for each of them when they finally started a life together.
But life came and went
and the cups remained as empty as her life.

She drank tea in the summer,
coco in the fall,
coffee in the winter,
and in the spring... just kinda just cried.

Her mother passed away
still drawing breath from beyond the grave
to tell her
how nobody needs 28 coffee cups.
But as the years dragged on,
she learned not to care


They met fifty-seven years ago next Tuesday.
At least, that's what Frank, my boss said when
he asked me to clean out Miss Covington's room.
I was still new at the retirement home
so I was in charge of boxing up items
for residents who had no families.
The boxes were usually dropped off
at thrift store donation centers.

After packing up the bedding and meager belongings of this woman,
I opened her kitchenette doors
and began to cry.
I told my boss I'd pay whatever price he asked
for Miss Covington's coffee cup collection.
With a raised eyebrow, Frank muttered
something about ain't nobody got needs for
28 coffee cups, but whatever suits your fancy."

I definitely wasn't in need of that many cups
but what I couldn't tell Frank was that...
at my previous residence home there was a man named Jack.
Crazy Jack, they used to call him.
One of the unfortunate ones after the war.
He used to bring two matching coffee cups
to every Sunday dinner.
Said he was waitin' on someone
but couldn't remember why...
or who.

Nevertheless,
Every Sunday he'd fill the two cups.
In the summer, it was tea.
In the fall, coco,
in the winter, coffee.
And in the spring, he'd sit upstairs
in his room for hours
counting and polishing his 30 coffee cups.
waiting for some mystery woman to join him.
The night he died was a Sunday.
Three months ago next week.
He left his coffee cups at the dinner table
and told me to take them,
and fill them with someone I love.