Spinning Plates
Richie McCaffery


My mother was mad as mercury,
mad as a silken Disraeli stovepipe hat
hiding a gypsum-white rabbit.

She once told me — the malt talking —
I wasn't her first born boy;
there had been seminal drafts.

She said being pregnant
was like spinning a bone-china plate
on the thinnest stick inside you —

breakages were bound to occur.
It was a question of which piece
could drop intact and roll around

on a hardwood floor, its rim ringing
with cries. My sister is a wild firing,
an artisan's multi-colored plate

still atwirl. I am a white canteen
saucer, ready to be tanned with tea-
slops. A cupped plan for spillage.