Poetry Monday

Marbled Chocolate

When I think back

to my first taste of chocolate,

it smacks of your seed cake

almonds neatly layered on top.

A treat on Saturday

after piano practise,

one thin slab on a white china plate

choked down with a glass of milk.

A penance, 

but I never dared to tell you.

I remember your anger

when I came home from Mulligan’s,

told you they had shop-bought cake,

a triangle of marbled sweetness;

Battenberg.

They had sliced pan too;

white and fluffy,

and on Fridays, fish and chips,

lashed with salt and vinegar,

wrapped in newspaper.

I used to stand outside the chipper

watch people queue,

hungered to be like them.

You beat me senseless.

the cane snapped in two 

as I bent over in apology.

You shouted that they

were common and poor,

and shop-bought

was a sin.

I lost all interest in food.

and spent years in therapy

learning how to eat.