Baking Scones for Eminem by Valerie Laws

Someone should be. Someone should be

Walking through the door with a heavy tray,

Steam rising from scones like puffball clouds

Golden and swollen, light as fluff, jam

Glowing ruby, warm as mother’s blood,

Primrose-cool butter waiting calmly

To spread and melt. And Marshall, he

Should be slouching on a suburb sofa

Which has seen better days and sticky

Fingers, and he should spring erect

At the scent of new baking as flour, fat,

Sugar make their music, and she

Will say, casually swiping his feet

In their box-fresh fuck-off trainers

Off the coffee table with a hand

Trained by years of nose-wiping,

‘Now now, Marshall!’ as she lets

The tray land like a spacecraft

Bringing peace to earth. Not me,

Even though my heavenly scones

Could save him, free him to sing

Of something more than money

And how crap his childhood was.

I’ve been there, done that

With the mothering, the Be-Ro

And the Stork. Still doing it. Still

Having different ideas about muscular

Younger men on sofas, even Slim

With his antimacassar of tattoos,

Though butter and jam could still be

Involved. Not me, then.

But someone should be.

Valerie Laws is a novelist, poet, playwright and performer.