The Breakfast Room
In the breakfast room, under the tall windows there is a white wood table with legs like the almonds of a pollinating Gilad tree in spring. I can see the sky. It is morning light, robins flutter and land on the blossoming apple tree, red against rose; the dawn has settled into verdant pink day, the Battenburg lace cloth clings around the table. Mother bringing the clotted cream and scones, with dark roast coffee and English Breakfast tea, the blackberries on bone china. Dear poets, as I look over my father’s newspaper, I reminisce with nostalgia of “back in the day.” As I pour mylk into the coffee, with a dash of sweetener, I think of the swirls of pantomime, the black and white mask of the white and black swan in the Swan Lake ballet. Here, visiting my mother’s house, I am a white swan, powdered— a ballerina dancing— custom and elegance, a bouquet of white roses, look as effortless as a swan swims. It...
