Like butter, puddling
When I am at your table,
plates pass like chess pieces
in a waltz – King and Queen –
and it feels smooth like butter,
puddling under the lick of a flame.
"Here, taste this" chin cupped,
the splintered wooden spoon
wobbling with fullness and hope,
and I can feel a fresh kind of hunger
that my years have been missing.
When I ask you for the recipe
between eager mouthfuls
what I mean to say is that I want
a piece of your tender heart
to enjoy whenever I please.
I need to recreate the scent of you.
Breathe in the moss of green cardamom
beneath your skin, and the ginger snap
that makes me tongue-tied
and bite down on my lower lip.
When I take the faded tupperware
shared between us, its own conversation,
what I mean is: I want this
whole, in one bite,
again and again and again.
Sian Meades-Williams is a poet, author and freelance writer living in North London. Her recent poetry has been published by Green Ink and The Prose Poem and her features by the New York Times and National Geographic. She has a regular column in Mslexia and her latest book, The Pyjama Myth: the Freelance Writer’s Survival Guide, was published by Unbound. Her historical novel-in-progress, Belville, won the 2022 Yeovil Literary Prize.
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