THE CUP

DORIANNE LAUX

Shells or hollowed out stones, curved bones.

Woven leaves, shaped clay, glazed and fired.

Tin, porcelain, glass, pale ceramic, paper or plastic.

The cup, we are told, holds on, invented by no one,

made to contain and appease: water, tea, coffee,

hot chocolate or pudding, carrot soup, a carnival

of uses. One handled, two handled, painted or plain.

There is no one, I imagine, who is against the cup,

even the unmatched cup alone in its namesake

cupboard, its twin having fallen with a great noise

to the floor in shards and stars. A grandmother

somewhere in time packed her cups in a suitcase,

carried them into the new world on a ship, the frosted

waves clashing and shattering under the tinfoil moon.

Not one of her packed cups cracked. When she died

she left them to her daughter who swaddled them

in newsprint, her hands shaking as she put them away,

the same hands she cupped around her mother’s face,

drinking her in before the last wave washed her away.

Listen to Dorianne read "The Cup" below: