by Jo Withers
Plates with swirling sauce patterns where food has been pushed around in silence.
My teacup.
Floral serving dish from wedding set, faded.
Your beer glass, your wine glass, your whiskey glass.
Assorted bowls and cutlery from room of teenage son we never see.
Ramekins thick with chocolate soufflé which took too long to blend and was flat and bitter anyway.
Steak knife, which I cut myself with accidentally when you slammed the door, and for a moment considered a deeper cut, but instead turned the cold handle and placed it neatly beside its fork pair, two-by-two together, like everything that matters.