Slice by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Then came the age of cookery programmes.

I devoured them all, watched
pears strained from their skins
in a bloodshed of honeyed water.
the lick of the spoon and its plunge into the depths
the ripping of the fat from pummelled steak its drip-blood
drying and the flash-fry of flesh: its gravyed demise.

I watched the reducing of redcurrants to a sticky mess
and the slicing of artichoke hearts, their dry bleed.
I relished the dice of shallots and the five kinds of sugar
hits of sweetness parcelled ready for the rush and low
the caramelise and ooze of loins
hissing in a bed of brandy.

I baked cakes of frothy meringue,
laced them with plum wine,
a communion of syrup
and sweet forgetting
that parcelled itself like burning paper
as it shrunk to a wafer on my tongue.

But nothing topped
the drop of the lobster
into the rolling boil.
Or the opening of clams,
sighing their mealy deaths
in a steam of wine and garlic.


Kiran Millwood Hargrave was born in London in 1990. Her first collection, 'Last March' was published by Pindrop Press in March, 2012. www.kiranmh.co.uk