1 New Poem

Tea Stains

You leave as red clay to
pristine china, chipping bits and bobs,
alabaster rubbings, fault wire steel,

Christmas day trimming scissors crackle paper
dawning, torn errant in bracing sickness,
plate-cups on pikes, but aren’t spinning,

aren’t calling for release, youth’s folly,
but greying, retreat to pale shade draws,
nothing more having passed to lip,

but clinging in unwashed sink tone clamor,
the kind that never cleans quite:
overused corporate coffee pots,

British buildermen’s mugs.