Lip-Prints

As a little girl
I asked my mother, sipping hot tea,
"Why do you leave a lip-print on your cup?"
She gazed across the table
up at me, then toward my father.
She said,

“That lipstick serves a purpose –
Everyone now knows
that this cup is my own;
It is marked, you see,
Just for me.”
She kissed my father then,
and he wiped his cheek
reluctantly.

I sighed, tiny chin in hand,
and wondered,
When will I be old enough
to leave a lip-print
on a cup?

And now, here I sit,
on this cold, blustery night.
The lonely wind swirls
toward my window,
blocked by a glass it does not comprehend.
I look about in vain –
Where has that cup got to?