Cups

In response to 'Cups' by Gwen Hardwood

Cups

They know us by our lips. They know the proverb

about the space between us. Many slip.

They are older than their flashy friends, the glasses.

They held water first, are named in scripture.

Most are gregarious. You’ll often see them

nestled in snowy flocks on trestle tables

or perched on trolleys. Quite a few stay married

for life in their own home to the same saucer,

and some are virgin brides of quietness

in a parlour cupboard, wearing gold and roses.

Handless, chipped, some live on in the flour bin,

some with the poisons in the potting shed.

Shattered, they lie in flowerpot, flowerbed, fowlyard.

Fine earth in earth, they wait for resurrection.

Restored, unbreakable, they’ll meet our lips

on some bright morning filled with lovingkindness.

As Deirdre walked into the room, she could see all the cups arranged on the trolleys with huge aluminium teapots, jugs of milk and plates of biscuits: custard creams, bourbons and garibaldi. She briefly wondered, whilst shrugging off her coat, why they were called garibaldi. Or bourbons for that matter. Her help mate had done a fine job preparing everything and she felt grateful to her for her punctuality and diligence. After all, they were ‘only’ volunteers. Many of their customers, as she liked to call them, were already sitting in armchairs, bagging the best ones before the others arrived, eagerly awaiting their cup of tea and biscuit, so Deirdre began her rounds, carefully handing the utilitarian white cup and saucer to each in turn. “Do you want sugar in that, dear?” “Good morning, Maisie.” The elderly men and women, ever grateful for the warmth – of the community centre, the tea, the volunteers and the company – sipped, slurped and imbibed their traditional brew, some dunking the biscuits to save delicate teeth, or simply from habit; some with trembling hands, rattling the cup in its saucer. They were Deirdre’s saviours. Widowed, alone and retired, she found solace in offering cups of tea. Her saviours found solace in the receiving of them.

Cup and saucer. You and I. The container and the supporter, the place where you can rest. I cup my hands around your face, my arms around your shoulders. You, the person who keeps growing, quickly, a little more every time I blink, so fast I should not be able to recognise you. Except, in your face I see mine, ours, and I read you, I learn you as you expand and grow and grow until I have to let you go. A string around your waste, I will tie it tight, invisible, as long as it needs to be, so I can pull myself to you, wherever you'll end up being in the world. The invisible umbilical cord that never gets severed, not really.The cord that feeds you now will one day seem pointless to you. One day, perhaps, but not to me. Stay here, just a little bit longer, so I can remember the warmth of your long body forever, the feet that belong to the man you are becoming, the smile that launches a thousand ships. Like a ship, you will sail away, face your own adventures, embracing the world and everything it has to offer. And when you are ready, I will be here. A saucer to your cup. The perfect fit, the comfortable place where you can rest without judgement. We are two parts of a single object and I'll sit here waiting for you to find me after you go.

She cups her hands around me, my cheeks in the palms of her hand. She holds me so I am fully there, fully there in this moment, with her, for her. She does not want me to move away, to disappear. Hold this moment, this gaze, this space between us. This is what we have. The savouring, the honouring, of the desire to be this close, to look this fully, at the other. To exchange warm breath and the pulse of flesh. To give and to receive. To move ever closer. A kiss. Tender – tender, kisses described as tender. Is it “tender”, a currency? The bestowing of value. Tender and moist. The exchange of the holy water we contain in a discrete form. Cupping. Holding both hands, yours and mine together, taking hold, we stand. Together. We cup the space between us. Where we will dance unspoken unstepped. Dancing. Cupping. Cups. It is my mother’s birthday this week. Yesterday I bought her two cards. Each year it is a pressure. To send the card I like, I feel resonates with who I am, or the card she’d like to receive, full of someone else’s words, untrue. Most of the cards are pink. She doesn’t like pink. I have a limited selection to choose from. Before Christmas I visited my mum and found a cupboard and drawer – the old cupboard from my bedroom – full of cards – Christmas, birthday, thank you cards – bought and never or not yet sent. So many cards. Some bought over and over – sentimental “special sister” cards for the sibling she never sees or speaks to. My mum’s life has narrowed so, visiting the card shop is a significant activity for her. One of the cards I bought has a cup on the front. I didn’t write it. She’d like the words but not the image. At Christmas she sends and receives cards, lots of them, and is sad when she has to take them down. I thought I would make a point of sending more cards to her this year and asked my partner to send one this week too. I want her to be surrounded by cards. Yet I know cards from me will not be valued as cards from old friends, from the past, unless I find the write (meant “right”) verse. The words are all to her, not the intention cupped within the card, in my own hand. Once I found the “perfect” card for her – words of how she had sacrificed herself without asking for thanks, autumnal colours on the front. She loved it – many phone calls from her and my older sister to say how wonderful it was. She waits to be touched in this way but it is so very difficult. Maybe it was a one off.

When I was a consumer of large quantities of alcoholic drink, cups were of little use to me. A cup’s capacity would not satisfy my thirst or aid my journey to oblivion. Only a pint glass felt comfortable in my grasp. Cups were what I drank tea or coffee from on polite occasions. To show my ease with cups, I mistakenly acquired the habit of= extending the little finger of my cup holding hand. Classy, I thought, but made ridiculous when practised by the assembled female cast of TV’s “ Last of the Summer Wine.” Cups are often cherished trophies, proudly and prominently displayed in sports clubs the world over. But, as a born loser I never collected a cup in recognition of my valiant efforts, although I became adept at clapping those who did!