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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Carole Bromley

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Fifties Kitchen

Same mangle. That blue collarless shirt
on the airing-rack. The glass-fronted cupboard,
the tiered cake-stand, the grey nets.

If I opened the door to the pantry
the round tin with the King on
would still be out of reach
between the siphon of Flit
and the bottle of iodised blood purifier.

Any moment now Grandma will walk in
in her Sunday pinny and start preparing
the cold plate of hot chips.
She’ll tell us it’s her favourite day:
a lie-in, no breakfast, no lunch,
then mid-afternoon she rinses six potatoes,
pats them dry and slices them in two directions
with that knife with the broken handle
until they’re exactly the right thickness
to slide into the bubbling oil.
On the window-sill even the wasps sing
in their raspberry-flavoured graves.

But it’s time to move on. A buzzer will sound
if you try to climb over that red rope.

 

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