Malt Loaf
It was the dark bread my mother fed me
to pacify my tears.
When I saw it on the kitchen table
I knew it meant departure.
She’d be slicing it into squares,
loading it with butter as he kissed me: as he
gently unhooked my hands from his neck
and walked out to the car.
She’d be laying it in a brown circle
on the big blue plate
as I watched the Renault rise over the hill.
She’d give it me with warm milk and honey.
The butter thickened in my mouth,
spread itself like wet silk in my throat.
I’d mold each slice into a small lump
until the raisins bled black juices
and my fingertips were slick with grease,
I’d squeeze it like the clay he let me play with:
the stuff we dug from river banks
spiced with bracken, loam and willow bark.
My mother would keep slicing and spreading
until I stopped crying: once I ate a whole loaf.
Now the spices seem too sinister for comfort.
The molasses jars my palette, reminds me
of tar, long roads and car doors slamming.
I do not like the taste of desertion.
by Gaia Holmes
from the National Poetry library