When I recall
my first taste of chocolate,
it smacks of your seed cake
with almonds neatly layered on top.
It was a treat on Saturday
after piano practise,
one thin slab on a white china plate
choked down with a glass of milk.
Penance,
but I never told you.
I remember your madness
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 old newspaper.
I used to stand outside the chipper
watching people queue,
hungered to be like them.
You beat me senseless.
The cane snapped in two
as you yelped and wailed
that they were
common and poor,
and shop-bought
was a sin.
I lost all interest in food,
spent years in therapy
learning how to eat.