In the Kitchen
All morning
Nanna’s kneads
pummels and bangs
make the cutlery
rattle and jump
in the drawer below.
She places a yellow
gingham tea towel
over the basin, leaves
the mixture to rise
like a mushroom
in the dark,
beats it
back down,
shapes it into balls,
waits once more.
Oven hot,
a yeasty aroma wafts
throughout the house.
I drool at the thought
of slabs of butter
on freshly baked crust.
Nanna won’t even
let me try one.
These baps
are as round
as Aunty Cynthia
and just as heavy.
These baps
are harder
than Nanna’s
Be-ro book
rock buns.
Nanna won’t even
put them
on the roof
of the outside loo.
She says
they will make
the birds
fall from the sky.
Glut
First week back, final year
at Bradwell C of E Infant’s,
the sort of day
when there’s been a
slight chill to the morning air.
Nanna waits at the gates.
Instead of the ice-cream shop
or the Post Office
we head to The Hills,
up worn limestone steps
by Rachel’s house,
past kind Mrs Law’s
who left to have a baby,
past the bit
where the brook
emerges from Hades,
past the beech trees
that will produce
a bumper mast
later in the Autumn,
up, up, up
to the top of the world
where gorse, rabbits
heather and sheep cohabit,
along to the ridge
where the Gliding Club
hangs out, turn left
towards Rebellion Knoll,
and onto Brough Lane.
Nanna pulls out
two carrier bags
from her pockets.
We pluck the plumpest,
sweetest, sun smooched
berries, cram them
into our mouths,
deep purple gorgeousness
bursts onto our tongues,
smears our faces
and stains our lips
so they look like
punk rockers’ makeup.
Two bags full later
we continue towards Brough,
then up Stretfield
and back to Bradda
before the sun sets,
get washing the dark treasure for
jam, jelly, crumbles, vinegar.
That I will later that night
have bad guts
does not diminish
the joy of the glut.
Soir De Paris
This miniature bottle,
with its Art Deco design,
is more precious to me
than the sapphires
which share its colour.
Empty now,
I used it up
before I was old enough
to even go courting.
Grandad bought it for you
before a show in Sheffield,
a little luxury
on a manual worker’s wage.
Did you ever use it?
Or did you save it for best
like the unworn dresses
which hung in your wardrobe?
The warm amber
and bergamot scent lingers
though, and every now
and then I unscrew the lid,
take a hit.
The Rejects Club
Baked beans and a
cheese and onion roll
every weekday dinner,
bar Monday’s Sunday
leftovers.
I walk home to eat.
It’s only five minutes.
Bradwell Junior School
canteen does not cater
for vegetarians.
Besides, all I ever did
was sit in the Young
Ornithologists Club
drawing owls and kingfishers
with the other rejects.
Nanna doesn’t know
what else to feed me,
so every weekday dinner,
bar Monday’s Sunday
leftovers, it’s
baked beans and a
cheese and onion roll.
Pastry crisp and golden,
the mouthwatering
anticipation of a melted
cheesy middle,
beans slowly heated up
on the gas hob
just as I like them, served
in a green and white
vaguely hexagonal dish.
I love it,
it’s my favourite, but
every weekday dinner,
bar Monday’s Sunday
leftovers, eventually
I have to say
NO MORE!
The Changeover
‘It changes you forever, but you are changing forever anyway’ – Margaret Mahy
I am sat by the window
with the view of Rebellion Knoll.
Grandad knows
he may as well talk to a phantom.
Nanna’s in the kitchen cooking tea.
Oven chips, processed peas.
Fish fingers for me,
Finny haddock for them.
She shoos the cats off the worktop,
warbles along with Radio 2.
Regular as the fish van,
once a week
after I’ve got off the bus
I go up Town Lane
to the library
in the old Methodist schoolroom,
check out the fold-out shelves
for new titles. Sometimes
I am the only browser.
The squeak of sensible shoes
on Parquet flooring,
a faint trace of coffee
mornings, Christmas Fairs,
Girl’s Brigade, end-of-term plays
and kid’s birthday parties I got invited to
only from their parents’ sense of duty.
I take my stash to the desk
to be stamped without
making eye contact, renew
one book over and over again.
Lauren Foster is a writer, musician and artist based in Charnwood in the UK Midlands. Published in The Journal, Leicester Literary Review, DIY Poets and more. Graduate of the MA Creative Writing at University of Leicester. Poet in residence on The Kindness Project in autumn 2023. Drummer and vocalist with The Cars that Ate Paris, a garage-punk band.
You can find more of Lauren’s work here on Ink Pantry.