Reading the cups

By our newest guest poet, Margaret Galvin

As a child I couldn’t be kept from the kitchen press.
I’d drag a chair across the floor to reach the shelves,
risk the pierce and scrape of the breadknife
the jagged edges of a pyrex dish to unearth the one
willow pattern cup, glazed earthenware,
blue motifs on white, carried to the old woman in the corner.

Clay and coal dust blackened her fingers as she read the cup,
traced the tale of the thwarted couple,
pointed out the figures depicted on the fabled crockery.
Told the story of love, treachery and redemption
to a child, fascinated
by this world beyond the smoky kitchen.

A world of pagodas, mandarins, eloping lovers, weeping willows
evoked by the old woman who had the rudiments
of the folk tale, the gist of story,
as she fanned the flame under the pots.
Turned the bellows wheel,
ignited the spark.