WednesdayIII July

Bananas

A cut glass bowl sits on a battered kitchen table.
Its clear, thick sides magnify the ridges and whirls of beaten-up wood.
It looks perched, as though its better than this and will go.
The bowl’s aged well.
It’s older, by a number of years, than the table and its owner.
It looks the same as when it came out of its box.
It survived the blitz.

During the sixties it held bits.
Household fragments – used string, elastic bands or random keys.
One particularly event filled night it was almost smashed on a lover’s head.
It survived the growing family’s hasty move from flat to ill-afforded house.
Lesser objects didn’t.
For a brief period it was a wormery.
And a vapour bath.
And it's seen a fair few family dinners.
It saw the break up and the half-arsed make up.

Many years and objects have passed in and around the cut glass bowl.
It has always remained the same. Cut glass and a bowl.
Now different fruits ripen in it.
The bananas turn to brown from tropical yellow.
If they turn too far no-one will eat them.
They’ve travelled a long way, further than the cherries,
To sit in the sun rubbing skin with strange skin.
She peels one and eats it.
The bunch is displaced and shifts lower into the bowl.