Hot Cross Buns – From Recipes for Disaster
Currants soaking in the triumph
of melted butter; red jam swollen
on the floral plate, charred ridges
where the knife cut:
a rough-sawn edge.
You brought it on a tray;
lay breakfast where our love had made
a mess of crumbled sheets. Still warm,
the teapot is precarious
on our knees. Your lean, wired limbs relent,
you spread and curb the molten jam and tempt
my open mouth with strawberry kisses.
I lean back. Your split fingers
dawn on my impressionable skin, your nails black
from hammering resistant metal into curving shapes,
while I tease words from other languages into extended
sentences. You give me precious metal
for this dictionary of tenderness, raise
my blushed fire stain
to the surface.
No polishing
with spinning petticoat of layered cloths;
a whirling dervish of frayed ends.
The iron grate, glossed brilliant red,
where you made a fire
while I was shopping and at night
we couldn’t sleep, is empty.
You burnt my tea towels, using them to take
your scorching silver from the oven.