Tragedy Mash

Haley Jenkins

source: café delites

For Jack Monroe

‘If you ever see me eating sweet potato mash out of a saucepan, you know it’s bad news.’ 

small boy knows it’s bad news as I lift the spoon / curve a quenelle of sweet spuds / chili-cheese infused with salt from the tears and the firecracker beat of my bare feet on the crumbed kitchen floor / chunks of brie on the counter top / unwashed pots everywhere else / stealth chocolate cached in the cups the small boy can’t reach / soy sauce drunk neat for a smack on the jaw / cheaper than Jack Daniels / the washing machine spinning the few good clothes / we’re sitting naked and discussing tragedy / the oven’s warmth on our backs / passing the pot back and forth / a holy rite in the dusk

small boy asks me if we’re going anywhere / upstairs I say / smartarse small boy says we’re in a ground floor flat / I say we’ll still go upstairs / we’ll get onto the roof / count the stars as they appear / we’ll go up the next stairs into the atmosphere / count the Earth’s electric fireflies as they emerge / then we’ll find the next until we’re at the cosmic being’s feet / small boy asks if its nails will be painted like mine / of course we gods all paint ourselves pink / then we’ll ask the important questions the ones cut fine and sparkling

My special small boy asks why aren’t Pokémon real?

No, I say, why the council cocked up the Housing Benefit again.

Haley Jenkins lives in Surrey, UK. She runs Selcouth Station Press and her debut poetry book Nekorb was published by Veer Books (2017). She loves colourful socks, drinks way too much tea and tries to find the blue bits in the stormiest skies. @selcouthstation