Teabags

'I love my tea'
it said on the mug I bought you.
You sometimes drank three teapotsful
before breakfast.
I wasn't allowed to put the mug in the dishwasher
in case the red of the love heart faded.

Even when we went to visit your godson
in Cambodia you packed your case with 100 bags
of PG Tips.

After a wedding in Paris we were all drinking Dom Perignon
in a marquee near the Pompidou
when you reached the mug from your handbag
and asked if there was a kettle.

When you went to babysit the twins
there was a note in the kitchen,
"We know you love tea, so help yourself,
we have Cammomile or Peppermint.
The babies were left unattended for three hours
while you borrowed a bicycle from the shed.
You didn't stop peddling until you got to the supermarket.
You rode back to the twins with a box of Tesco Value
in the front basket.

I still kept the mug when you left
but one day when washing up it slipped out of my hands
like a ball from an English wicketkeeper's gloves.
It broke my heart to sweep up the shattered pieces
of ceramic.

It was two weeks later when I cut my bare foot
on a piece I had missed.
I picked it up and the loveheart
had not been broken at all.