It's Still Life

A Cupful of Moon

The old woman with no cat
digs where the crow dropped her house key,
a hole just moonbeam-wide,
neatly spooned between two failures
of courgettes.

Her spade hits porcelain.
Not bone.
Not root.
A teacup …
a drowned saint,
half-sunk in the drought-starved clay,
glazed in sorrow and stained by Earl Grey.

The crack in its side
sings in a language of dust
and Steinbeck.

Or Poe.

“Old woman,” it whispers,
in a voice like torn lace.
The pattern, blue-veined,
spidering just like
the day grief forked itself
into her skin.

It matches the scar where the cat
(the one that isn’t hers),
scratched her with a look
more than a claw.

The crow chuckles from the fencepost:

“The moon’s getting cold.
Bury it deeper, woman.
For archaeology’s sake.”

The clay drinks the moonlight like spilt milk,

as the old woman,
grubby-palmed and smiling,
holds the cup
where a purr should be.