Spinning Plates
My mother was mad as mercury,
mad as a silken Disraeli stovepipe
hat hiding a gypsum-white rabbit.
She once told me, the malt talking,
that I wasn't her first born boy,
there had been seminal drafts.
She said that being pregnant
was like spinning a bone-china plate
on the thinnest stick inside you.
Breakages were bound to occur.
It was a question of which piece
could drop intact and roll around
on a hardwood floor, its rim ringing
with cries. My sister is an artisan
firing, a wild coloured plate
still atwirl. I am a white canteen
saucer, ready to be tanned with tea-
slops. A cupped palm for spillages.
*Richie McCaffery was born 1986. His poems have been accepted by The Rialto, Stand, Magma, Agenda, The Warwick Review and many others. His first pamphlet is due out from HappenStance in 2012.