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.
