Best
A wedding present from a dotty aunt was kept for best
rested in a dresser, like a frail patient who couldn’t bear the light.
I recall the three times it was laid out
and the pleasure mother found in speaking the words,
Royal Worcester Bordeaux, the sophistication of the sound.
the 2nd of June 1953
Six New Elizabethans in a row;
I placed my cup in my delicate saucer so lightly not a sound was made,
before ‘I was Glad’ broke above us like a summer squall
and our fragile elegance was complete.
I carried in both hands the precious weight of the serving plate
laid with spam fritters which mother pushed clear
of the patterned border and poked in despair
and Coronation Chicken tasting of travel, tickled my tongue.
I traced blue curlicues and licked seed cake crumbs,
in every home a wireless hummed;
we pretended we were Royalists to show we knew how to behave.
the 30th of January 1965
As motionless as the cranes along the Pool of London
we ranged in a parlour circle and remembered those lost,
learned to pour milk from a jug, tea from a pot
the rituals and ceremonies of commemoration.
I passed the plates as the gun carriage ground up Ludgate Hill
at noon a single macaroon,
as a gunshot marking every minute carried Winston off.
Grey pastry flaked to ash in my mouth,
Ray couldn’t grasp the handle, a dolly’s tea set in his agricultural hands
as we peered at the blizzard screen on a mahogany stand.
the 29th of July 1981
We had vol-au-vents, a confection spun from air
a six point star of ginger snaps with cocktail stick flags,
perfect triangles of tinned salmon and cress.
Each held a plate, loved the shape, the glaze, the finer work,
the glorious heft, our ceramic opulence.
My family valued the sacrament of swirls and the floral swoosh,
we tapped the edges for purity and dreamed in gold.
The parks wide open, the crowds dozens deep,
parade grounds shimmered in the heat waiting for a kiss.
I nestled for seventy years in tissue paper, as the decades swept by outside,
I minded my manners, dried the best serving platter after each historic day,
and became English gently, in my own translucent way.
By Brian Comber
Worcestershire poet, admirer of churches, optimist