I’d sit in her kitchen as she stirred the tea,

Eyeing the shelves that creaked under weight,

Mugs that she’d bought at every seaside shop,

Every city she visited too, she’d find those places,

The souvenir shacks filled with tea towels

And and money boxes and sugary sticks of coloured rock.

Most people buy the magnets to stick to their fridge

But the mugs were the things that called to her.

A mug shaped like a bus and one like a church,

Several are painted with cityscape vistas.

And she brings them all home, wrapped up in paper,

Places them lovingly onto those shelves

Where they remind her each day, of the world that’s out there,

The world that still waits, for when she can fly.