Vivienne Popperl

Fine China

My parents’ wedding china was Honiton Green—
gifted by my grandparents, dainty Honiton Green.

Delicate porcelain by appointment to the Queen,
teacups, saucers, side plates, platters, all Honiton Green.

Four settings made it down the years to me,
I keep them behind glass doors, the Honiton Green.

I remember winter afternoons when my family took four o’clock tea,
sunlight glinted and gleamed on Honiton Green.

Things are made to be used says my mother in my dream,
but I’m afraid I’ll break them, the Honiton Green.

You can fill teacups with hot black tea, stir in sugar and cream,
clink edges with a silver spoon, tough Honiton Green.

Creamers and sugar bowls, lacy gold borders, green filigree,
garlands of flowers, looping and scooping, all Honiton Green.

I yearn for that elegance, that riotous glee,
but I can’t bring myself to use, I can’t bear to lose, the Honiton Green

On The Umpqua

Smoke roils the valley air
hangs brown in the sky
weakens the sun
to an orange rheumy eye.
Afraid to breathe, we are grateful
for the yurt’s shelter.

Semi trucks shudder
down the highway
juddering brakes rat-a-tat
the night.

Early morning we flee
past an elk stag guarding
his sleeping harem, speed
to the ocean where west winds
battle the smokey east, push
the sky clear.

But that motionless stag,
protective, remains
in his green meadow,
the curtain of smoke
silently drifting down.

Vivienne Popperl lives in Portland, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in Clackamas Literary Review, Timberline Review, Cirque, Willawaw, About Place Journal, and other publications. She was poetry co-editor for the Fall 2017 edition of VoiceCatcher. She received both second place and an honorable mention in the 2021 Kay Snow awards poetry category by Willamette Writers and second place in the Oregon Poetry Association’s Spring 2022 contest “Members Only” category. Her first collection, A Nest in the Heart, was published by The Poetry Box in April, 2022.