Fanny's China Garden Poem by Charlotte Peters Rock

Shards of pottery and china
remembered patterns
decorated the small garden
within her garden
underneath the apple tree

Tucking them in
beside her little flowers
she kept her memories
not quite intact

Saving careful pennies in a tin
Putting-by the six place tea-set
Paying it off Bringing it home

His comments on her silliness
Wet's tha want wi that?
Pleasure as she set the table
Polished them admiringly

Prized for Christmas and on Boxing Day
their Anniversary Anxious
watching as clumsy sons left them

on the table edge or
sideways on the saucer
Tears when a cup handle pulled
away as she washed up

clattering the cup to chip
two others and a saucer
For years she used them for herself

Her cross a tracery of flower
round the smooth translucent china
Handleless

Pain stabbing as he dropped
two plates on quarry tiles
in the scullery
Making a point

Quarter plate - part cup -
just a deckle-edge bouquet
Tucking-in the pretty bits

sharp side down
to cheer the flower border
Loss and memory growing

01May1996 CPR