I felt my tooth chip. Another piece of porcelain
breaks loose as the dinner plate bounces on the bottom of
the fake jawbox. This single remaining plate, a history
of chips hidden underneath its rim, splattered with
cropped leeks and spotted with burst barley from a
broth. Thirteen moves, two jaw-boxes, twelve
dishwashers and three children, the azure blue
forget-me-not and cherry red honeysuckle now faded
into a late winter.
The perfect wedding gift; a dinner-set of cups, saucers,
side plates, and dinner plates; microwave proof,
dishwasher proof, and argument proof. We vowed to
love and cherish it all the days of our lives, stacked it
with our other vows and wedding gifts for everyone to admire.
This plate that has survived the drops, scrapes, scratches, bashes
and bangs, the intense heat and the chilling colds.
I’ll wash and shine it, hide the flaws, find a spot where
the setting sun will shine a mid-summer heat on the
entwined blossoms, hang it there on the wall for all to see,
this plate that withstood it all.
Seamus Mc Dermott has had poems published in The Madrigal Literary Magazine, Crossways Literary Magazine, The Bangor Literary Journal, and in the 2022 anthology of Donegal poets Hidden Donegal. He has been shortlisted in the Allingham Arts Poetry Competition for the last three years, and runner-up in The Bangor Literary Journal 2022 Forty Words Competition, and his poems have been highly commended in the Frances Browne Literary Festival 2021/2022. He has had a video-poem selected for screening at five international film festivals in 2021 and 2022.
