POETRY

I

blue, bird's blue

shiny china:

your cup of old

blue bone, shiny

bone of flowers

on blue of steam

and morning

blue, scallop-bone

of china's gold

rim and rose,

the bone of roses

on blue.

2

You give me

your bone, too,

with this cup

of scallop soft

petals on blue

china blue. Inside

your lace of skin

is scalloped rose:

the bone-colored

judge of tea,

the white of bone

free of tannin,

so deep

it sits in blue,

the lovely cream

of bone for tea

at sunrise,

lies budding,

your bone.

Your rose bone.

3

So true –

no glaze but days

and days of mornings

filled with tea

could free that rose,

that open-work

on the handle.

The fit so perfect

in the saucer,

the blue, blue, blue

of that scalloped

saucer to sit,

in the after-

mornings,

the delicate

bone, the champagne

of blue, the silver

of gold

of your cup, your

cup of bone,

the bird's-blue.