Porcelain Leaves, The Cream And The Green

July 25, 2020
by

 

 

 

I admit it,
I don’t even like them
just bought them on a whim
but as my hand closes around
each creamy sliced-off stalk end
with its cool clasp of overlapping leaves
the same pallid green as the porcelain dress of
the tight-waisted, white-bodiced, bouquet-clasping
porcelain lady pirouetting on my mother’s mahogany
dresser and which we had to keep there, year after year,
because of course ‘she was a gift, and just imagine if …!’
but these leaves are more damp tissues than porcelain,
pressed in one over another, and I rinse them slowly,
almost tenderly, leaning over the kitchen sink as the
steam begins to rise, feeling a spray of ridges as
delicate as the veins in the underside of my wrist
as, caught up in yet another school lunch,
I turn my hand and, with a furtive flick
into a serviette, fold them out of sight
– so what am I doing
now, serving up
Brussel sprouts
to my family?

 

 

 

Denise

Denise has a background in commercial book publishing, manages Black Quill Press, and is Poetry Editor for Australia/New Zealand for The Blue Nib. Her poetry is published widely and has received numerous awards. Her debut poetry collection The Beating Heart was published by Ginninderra Press in August 2020.

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