Poem For A Wonky Union Jack Concealed Inside A Sponge

 Bulging at your reddest point you are
a masterpiece of heat-seeking technology but not,
alas, of cake. Better, perhaps, to stay a secret
locked in wraps of royal icing and beneath
the shaky outlines of a royal guard.
‘Cut just around the neck’, he says,
half-suspecting (looking down
at powdered fingers and the ghosts of colour
seeping down into his cuticles, the blueprints
of a doomed construction) that disaster lay
within. But you were cake more suited
to street parties, to starring in
a child's thumb-paintings
and in happy, patriotic sugar highs.
You make your own perfection
in lopsided smiles, a flag well-risen.
A well-intentioned bake. An almost-level Britain.