I Found Her Teapot
in the haphazard
porcelain bin, uncracked and dusty
blue, its florals nothing I’d noticed before, kept
like a smudge of color in the backdrop I could
brush over until its displacement from her
empty house, the cardboard
boxes of her innards. I hadn’t asked
enough questions while she was alive—
the station she preferred on the radio, her Vilna
born mother, which bridge she was walking
when the bomb dropped, her farmer father, her
favorite teas. If she had ever sewn a dress
the same cerulean of its glaze. Did she,
just once, when her husband was asleep
and the tea was cool, sip straight
from the spout. How little I knew. So I took it.
Warmed it at my chest. Kissed the cornflower
swirl of its cheek.
Kallie Swyer graduated from SUNY Geneseo in 2017 where she was lead poetry editor for Gandy Dancer’s spring 2017 edition. This experience ignited a passion for editorial work and led to her pursuing an internship with W.W. Norton, a Hunter College Sainsbury fellowship working under Wendy Lesser for The Threepenny Review, and professional work as both a writer and editor. She recently received her MFA in poetry from Hunter College.