Crockery

those stolid matrons, beef
to the heel, arranging their
crockery, pensive at a
certain sound or the

gold bars of light falling, crossways,
striping the carpet, finally fading
as the car door slams, hollow, and
eyes, onion-stung, survey

the dinner upon that field
of flowers, bluebells here, then
hollyhocks, then poppies bleeding
to the edge of the plate

marked with a pattern-name
and date, twice-fired, vitrified
to withstand the heat and the
damage of cutlery clattering, the

accidental touch in the kitchen, too,
as the moon rises up, a single,
unblinking eye
espying the bones, sucked dry of their marrow,
piled high, scraps and leavings of
another day gone past