In the attic she finds a box.
Underneath an epidermis of newsprint
lies a blue-and-white china teacup,
part of the set used by her grandma
every week they went to see her.

The china, thin and determined,
pulls her into a warm room
and seats her at a groaning table.

Every cup has a saucer,
every plate has a doily,
silver sugar tongs rest
on white cloth
though no one takes sugar
in the tea poured from the squat pot
on top of milk.
On a birthday, the grandchildren
are given sugar lumps
and pretend they are horses.

They can start
when Grandma sits.
The plates are passed, achingly slowly,
sandwiches first. Egg and cress,
ham and English mustard,
soggy cheese and tomato,
too much marg,
bread cut into triangles,
crusts removed.

Then the homemade cakes are paraded:
a Victoria sponge oozing cream,
a dark ginger cake,
scones bursting with fruit.

The woman sees herself drop a saucer,
Grandma picking up the pieces
as if her fingers are tweezers,
the saucer never to be replaced.

She looks in the box again,
finding nothing.

Sam Szanto lives in Durham. Her poetry pamphlet, ‘Splashing Pink’ was published by Hedgehog Press and is a Poetry Book Society Winter 2023 Choice. Her pamphlet ‘This Was Your Mother’ won the 2023 Dreich Slims Contest and will be published soon. She won the Charroux Poetry Prize and the First Writer International Poetry Prize, and her poetry has been placed in journals including ‘Northern Gravy’ and ‘The North’. She was awarded an MA with distinction from the Poetry School / Newcastle University in 2023. Find her on Twitter/X Instagram and on her website.