After Grace
Tea of conversation over burnt toast
and black currant jam.
Breakfast tea in a pre-warmed pot,
leaves pressed into the infuser,
offered strong with brown sugar cubes.
Tea of confessions. A shimmering world
of grace, with eggs for breakfast
and a tea pantry of iridescent tins with
luminosity in rows — a gallery exhibit
of Earl Grey; the Prince
of Wales, Darjeeling, Oolong.
Each night another aromatic visitation
as Grace, Paul’s mum,
brings her trilogy of thick albums
from the highest bookshelf —
tea-stained photographs of a shy girl
from Liverpool — born between
the wars. Grace of survival.
Grace born of the dockyards
and steel strip mills, whose geologist
son travels into the Himalayas,
to Goa, to Assam. Paul’s postcard
arrives from West Bengal: Teatime!
A picture of five hundred women
kneeling to pluck leaves, their baskets
filled on this night of summer solstice:
the most luxurious tea in the world.
In the English market each Thursday,
cozies and strainers, alchemical objects
unaltered for millennia.
A pinch of leaves left in a teacup:
an acorn, an owl, telling the future
displeased with what it sees.
Tea-flavored mints at the midnight
pharmacy to disguise whisky
or weed at the back of a boy’s breath.
The sky, tea-colored, against
poplars and lindens,
mirroring a teapot-shaped pond.
Tea tales so high they tumble
into the next century.
Tea mother who taught infant school
who traveled to class via scooter
commuting along the Calthorpe Close.
Grace of the cigarette
and the tea towel, the late night
cheese and onion sandwiches.
Grace of the inquisitive mind
imbibing Midnight’s Children,
in love with the Life of Pi.
Tea of generosity.
Grace’s wealth measured out in lemon balm,
in well-used spoons. Messages
she writes now on teabag-sized post-it notes:
I am 88 years old. I am grandmother to Rebecca, to Ellie.
Grace featured on the BBC news,
the poster woman for Dementia Friends.
and once-upon-a-time Grace who took me in,
a temporary immigrant/illegal alien
who became my closest friend, over tea.
* * * * *
Years After the Abortion, Continually Nightmared
If you would leave me in peace — but instead you accompany me to parties,
ski weekends, blues cafes. You float by at a distance — slight glimmer
from the far corner of the bar and look — sexy as ever — mean as a brilliant accountant
is mean, without malice. You stare at my body, track its pounds per inch
through the world. Judge the change in my lipstick. You come from behind,
saunter nearer, note my salary, my car payment — divide and itemize the economics
of our three-country break-up, our so long. You jot it all down in inscrutable lines
and then as if in a film noir, you disappear into smoke, into jazz riffs —
defined again by your decision, as I am: cleaving closer to this spectral goodbye.