Linda Whittenberg Bridie’s Gone Six Months Staffordshire china, each piece made double by mirrors. He chooses a teacup, dainty flowers with a bird whose name he wishes he knew. Tastes a bit of her flavor with each sip. Outside, hanging baskets left begging broadcast the news—she’s gone. Now, the tele has become his breakfast companion. RTÉ reports: Crazed taxi driver in London guns down twelve before turning the gun on himself. He thinks maybe it was grief told him to do it, maybe grief is another kind of terror. Pictures of the oil spill in the Gulf— pelicans, gulls, dolphins painted with oil. It’s the sea turtles that make him put down his toast. He hears their death rattles. He holds the cup lightly— how thin it is, how fine, how fragile. how easily it could shatter.
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