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Liz Atkin

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The biscuit tins of England

are small airtight museums
for things that no longer need
to breathe, opened maybe twice
a year depending on location.
Absently packed by factory girls
each on her individual variety
Jam Sandwich Crème day after day
or Bourbons week by week,
filling the space, filling the tier
of Family Select Assortments

that become Christmas gifts
and lowly raffle prizes before
arrangement on 4 o’clock doilies.

Once the last favourite has gone
they come into their own
to house fossils and old photographs
not fit for the album, buttons
letters and sewing bits. Some go to
allotment sheds for seeds, screws
or sharp sand, others underbed
or wardrobe deep with secrets
and old nylons. A few are buried,
suburban time capsules containing
curled dead pets, exhibits and evidence
and one or two have even sailed
the real ships biscuit with message,

and yet they long for the call,
not saucepans and railings this time,
but for the Biscuit Tins of England
to stack themselves high and solid
presenting rusting teatime faces.

 

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