my breakfast table awaits his return, by Annest Gwilym

Mrs. Mounter at the Breakfast Table, by Harold Gilman (UK), 1916-1917.

my breakfast table awaits his return

my home is small and dark in a dirty street 
of this city full of widows

the table is set for my son’s return from Ypres 
he said it would be soon

so I fill this house with patches of bright colour
I polish the teapot 

until it is a mirror reflecting light from three windows 
and the lustreware milk jug 

dances with copper, red and blue scintillations
on the spotless white tablecloth

none of my crockery matches but cleaner and shinier
you will not find in all London

the turquoise and gold patterned wallpaper matches
the forget-me-not blue of his eyes 

I brighten myself too with a poppy-red scarf 
a dress with splashes of scarlet

my breakfast table awaits his return

Annest Gwilym

Annest Gwilym lives in North Wales, near the Snowdonia National Park in the UK. Her work has been published in various literary magazines and anthologies. She has been placed, highly commended and shortlisted in several writing competitions in recent years. She was the winner of firstwriter.com’s Fifteenth International Poetry Competition 2016. She edited and designed the e-book anthology Flowers in the Machine in 2017 on behalf of the Poetry Kit.

free download: https://www.poetrykit.org/pkp/flowers.pdf