From the banal to the sacred

Emptying the Dishwasher

Rinse water collects

in bottoms-up coffee mugs

reflecting puddles from my past.

Remember this one

from the strawberry-blond student

who couldn’t spell

but painted glory

on a morning mug,

or these matching mugs

from my nieces

(we reserved for weekend coffee

in bed with books and snippets

of secrets from the past).

I unload two water bottles

from the kayak trip

(when snowy egrets

performed a sky-dance –

remember that),

a lid-less mason jar

that held botanical samples

for your latest illustration project,

glass dessert plates

from my grandmother,

casserole dishes from a sister-in-law

(who shops on QVC for stoneware

in the pattern she picked out for me –

guess that’s how it goes

if you’re wedding-less),

your flatware,

my stemware,

Tupperware with permanent spaghetti sauce stains.

Finally, I unload the three

handcrafted ceramic bowls –

terracotta clay, glazed

with lake-blue swoops

like feathered tracers

in a cloudless sky –

(a peace offering from my first partner

whose affair propelled me

into a studio apartment

with little to call my own –

she donated three straight-backed chairs as well –

triumvirate trinity of memory).

Sandy is dead now.

The chairs, long gone,

but the bowls serve us

stone-ground oatmeal

every morning.