Mischief light fills his eyes
and he can’t believe his ears.
His father is giving him permission
to smash a plate on the concrete driveway.

Mum’s picked up a nice line in Crown Lynn retro plates
in a second-hand shop in Timaru
and she’s culling hard.
Tiny chip on the underside of the rim, felt but unseen,
and it’s unsentimentally consigned
to the dustbin of history
or at least some anonymous landfill.

Dad sees an opportunity for secret boy business,
sanctioned vandalism. “Don’t tell Mum. She wouldn’t approve.”

That boy’s blue eyes are
charged with adrenalin
when that white innocence shatters
in a porcelain explosion.

“Do you feel a little bit Greek?” Dad asks
and is met with incomprehension.

 Andrew M. Bell