Mistaken Art

I went into a thrift store and found a small chipped bowl
with a faded blue ring around the rim.
I thought someone must have eaten breakfast
out of it for 30 years before he died. And I thought
this bowl would make a good poem. But I was wrong.

I made bisquits with my kids and we used star-shaped
cookie cutters. The leftover pieces of dough all
looked like birds in flight. I thought this
was a metaphor for life. But I was wrong.

My husband gave me a ring right after we started
dating. I wore it nearly everyday and
sometimes thought I loved the ring more
than I loved him. When it broke
after 15 years, I realized it wasn't the ring
I loved at all, but the man. I thought this
ring was surely a good subject for a poem.
But I was wrong.

It was not the cereal bowl, but 30 years of getting up
in cool mornings and going to work. It was not
the flying bird shapes that are like life,
but the breakfasts of bisquits, milk, and syrup
with your kids when there's nothing else to eat
in the house. It was not the ring
that held importance. The life, the morning,
the man -- there's the art.

Copyright Louise Robertson