Questioning Plates

“Kintsugi is a Japanese traditional craft that repairs broken ceramics using lacquer mixed with gold . . . Rokujigen Kintsugi Studio created original plates with the adjoining cracks representing the national borders between neighboring countries.” – Kintsugi Pieces in Harmony

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How did you know, dear dish, that you were ready to mend? 
What caused the old shatters? Is a shard a body, too? 
In you, my ancestral lands appear:
your left, a piece of Irish green-rimmed plate,
chicory and clover plainly trim its navel. 

Your right, a UK slice, a delicate, scalloped dish,
geraniums ornately painted in yellow, red, and blue. 
A river of gold now joins you, making one new plate.
Who makes the lacquer: does it tickle, burn, or soothe? 
I’m told you are more valuable than before

the break, shards now sublimated into a new being.
I purse my lips, and my mouth fills with questions: 
Can you still safely serve food? Do you feel the weight
of corned beef hash and baked beans? Do they 
mix together, or is your golden glue a berm? 

Three hundred years and three thousand miles separate 
me from the land of your imagined meal. 
Perhaps you are asking me questions, too: what shards
do you have? Are they destined for gold, or is their beauty
in the break? What meal would your plate hold? And with whom?