THE CUPS

by Patty Gordon

The Cups
broke against each other
after she died.

The whole heavy china
cabinet crashed like a crowbar

through the glassy night.
At first I thought earthquake

or car coming through window,
there was so much breaking,

sound carried on and on, icicles
fell into discordant bells,

as the hinge the cups hung
on since childhood gave way

in a shudder and the wood hulk
cracked, dangling like a man on a hook -

or in the heat, the wood expanded, but
if it's my mother, its one of her tantrums,

and she needs my help to take her
somewhere, she isn't now.

I still hear her voice, suspended
in sweetness, she set to spring at me.

The dead depend on our belief in them
as much as the living, I tell my sister

I'm not crying over teacups.
We have our mother to mourn.