Something to Keep
We’re at the glassblowers and my mother
– a repeat customer – is trying
to find the perfect gift.
Oceans, gardens, boiled confectionary
suggest themselves. There are bowls
and baubles, vases, abstract
swans and snails and everything holds light
in its own way. She bends and squints
and sometimes takes
the brightest pieces to the window, lifts them
up like a sommelier. No wrong bubble
goes unnoticed
and her turquoise coat is a crucial part of this.
I want to buy them all. Every last glass
she’s touched.
*Lindsey Holland’s poetry has appeared in various magazines. Her new pamphlet will be published later this year. She lives in a white cottage where she eats a lot of soup.
