Poem: I belong in the spare room

Georgia Cadoret

Bags are everywhere.

I know probably that these mugs will stay

in my mum’s spare room for a while now.

The mugs made me feel at times like I had

the most important sense of home,

anchoring me in the safety of ritual or

Divine morning panic, as coffee goes in

and is sipped, or glugged, cold, from it.

Those sensually appealing mugs felt as a

soft hand in certain times of need and sorrow.

Similar attachments have been made to others,

long departed, and my ability to hold

a preference for a mug in

someone else’s home

causes me to question

what fickle love it truly is.

And so loyal I can only be to such

things that merely represent a home,

but do not house me -

so loyal as to leave them, unattended,

in my mother’s spare room,

for I don’t know how long.

There will be mugs after the flight,

paper ones in airports and tacky china

with a birthday message on and

some, I’m sure,

Which will be quite tempting not to stuff amongst the socks in my suitcase.

These fickle, brittle receivers and givers

of hot energies and warm elixirs

will be found on greater lands and

past the realms of my mother’s spare room and

how delighted I will be to find them!