Poetry

Potting

A metal Wedgwood stands immovable by the station

welcoming a couple of misled Americans to

a ghost of a spirit apparently made permanent in

chalkey blue tea-sets crested with some Englishman’s head.

He is not from England, he is from Stoke.

Now those tradesmen’s skills are thrown towards Eastern seas

lost to life's lull, sinking, they submit.

A blueprint exiled in return for a shop-full of pound-landers

exchanged for a quid and the sake of reminiscing,

just to find themselves splintered, underneath pot plants.

Baccus Vase, you stand to attention in your glass box,

a reluctant exhibitionist, deflowered under priors eyes and

foreign potter’s hands, you slide back into the wheel

leaving only a rough plated goblet.

They wined and dined you into their mould

like a whore, you are chipped and then tipped.

Anna Dougherty