The ring appeared before I noticed the coffee was gone.
It was only shadow.
A small eclipse on the table.
A soft surrender.
Mornings passed through the same cup.
Books opened.
Phones lit.
Rain touched the window.
The chair remembered my weight.
Another settled beside it.
Then another.
I called them stains, accidents, nothing.
Then one afternoon, sunlight entered the room
and made the rings almost gold.
I saw my hand beside them.
The knuckles sharper.
The veins raised.
The skin carrying its own pale geography.
No single morning had changed it.
No single cup had marked the wood.
Time had worked quietly,
with patience,
with appetite,
with a terrible tenderness.
The table had been aging in front of me
just like them,
the ones who kept pouring,
kept carrying,
kept sitting beside us
while their own hands grew thinner.
I had mistaken their marks for damage.
Now I saw them as evidence.
The coffee was gone.
The rings remained,
and I loved them more
for staying.