The Taste Of A Biscuit

From Things You Find in a Poet's Beard by A.F. Harrold

I remembered how I used to play with my mum.

As a kid, in the kitchen, we would bake together.

Now, though she’s gone,

and although I’m grown up

and can care for myself, can cook for myself,

although I don’t need her to wash my hair or buy my clothes

or hold my hand as I cross the road,

still it was nice to know she was always there, just in case.

Looking through her drawers after she’d died

I found, buried down, tucked away at one side

a little plastic thing, shaped like a star,

that I hadn’t seen for twenty years or more,

that we used to use to cut biscuits from rolled out dough.

And it was just this that I remembered today,

while chatting with friends about other things.

As if I took a cookie to dunk in my tea

it was as if the memory crept up on me,

and sadness came along hand in hand and hugged me.