The cabinet by Katie Jenkins

my strange claw-footed
sovereign of the attic landing

glass laying open
your filigree ribcage 

a deco display case
quiet as a casket

protecting the proxies 
of people I’ve loved 

an incomplete tea-set
a coronation mug

two model aeroplanes
three porcelain toads

what heirlooms 
await you

a Lladro figurine
slender and gleaming

a mallard-shaped
pencil sharpener

some old first edition
I never read?

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Katie Jenkins has recently completed a creative writing diploma at Oxford University, England. Her poetry is in print with The Everyman Library in their Pocket Poets series, and online with Floodlight Editions. She has poems forthcoming with Acid Bath Publishing and The Poetry Bus. Her travel writing about diving with sharks in Fiji has featured in the UK’s Guardian newspaper. There aren’t many sharks where she lives in Gloucestershire, England, with her husband and son.