Porcelain Dreams
We met at work, two weeks together, twelve hour working days, six days a week, and every other minute either dancing or inhaling each other’s breath, often both. Tonight, we are scrambling around in the muddy grass, cigarette butts forming a mini mountain, this is not a typical part of our life together but right now she is laying on her back, hair cradled in a puddle, begging the gods to cast down a lightning bolt so the porcelains might glint a clue.
‘Searth other there!’
She makes me smile with her front toothless lisp as we cradle stare at the stars and compare scars.
‘I got this in the kiln.’
‘I thot this thom a glathe burn.’
I ask her how she lost her teeth.
‘Which ones’, she laughs. ‘They thust thell out’.
It don’t bother me as I sneak a glance at her cute mouth. Every time she smiles a daisy is born. This night could go on forever and damn the rain. My goddess is casting spells to the universe from the womb of the Earth, where life really matters, where seeds are grown, and dream are planted. I want to say I love you but I’m already dancing to the beat of her charms, and she knows it. We both feel safe and neither of us care it’s getting late.
She tells me about her mum, a paintress, who passed away years before her time.
I thont to be a thainthress too, she dreams.
She has a delicate hand for it. I know, I am holding it right now and will hold it until the end of time if she allows me. I point to the Moon as it shys away behind a cloud.
‘It’s hiding because it knows I want to kiss you.’
She opens her other hand; her porcelain teeth are safely held.
‘You cheeky thing, you had them all the time!’
‘Mum thainted these, I’ll nether lose them, you better bee quick before the Moon comes back out and catches you.’
A few years later she would be up there herself, delicately painting the night sky from a palette of stars. I would go on, alone, to find retirement after a long career, moulding vases and tea collections. If you went to the Paris Exhibition you might have found one there. Look closely, you may find her too.
By Jay Rose Ana
Poet and founder of Mini Poetry Press