A certain slant of light or the softness of the breeze tells you; the brightness of the birdsong tells you it is morning. Most of the world is waking now, refreshed, while the night shift yawns and paws its way to bed. The light turns green. The light turns red. The morning traffic pauses.

As though drawn by an invisible mote of gravity, or pulled by a magnetic line of force that points south toward Boston, from seven directions a procession of coffee cups floats four-and-one-half feet above the sidewalk, looks both ways at the crosswalk, steps up 6 inches above the curb, stops at a bench, settles or hovers, waiting.

And attached to each coffee cup, a hand, and to the hand and arm and a torso; it is a procession of coffee cups pulling behind them a variety of men and women, younger, older, tied to the cup as it makes its way together onto a bus or a train, then spreads again to find a desk here, a chair there, a booth, a bar, a counter, a meeting-room table.

As though in the morning pots, lit as they are by the slant of light or touched as they are by the softest of breezes, brewed cups or pints destined for one place or for another, and the human who was chosen by this cup or that would follow along, preordained to settle where the cup would rest.

At some moment in the morning, the contents of the cups would be drained, and the procession comes to a sudden, vibrating halt.

Amen.