Afters

Unpeel me slowly, like the fruit
you placed on a white plate
ready to accompany the wine
or the cake, frilly-papered,
that you eyed while you ate
your salad and brown bread.

The apricot warms, ripening,
the cake crumbles in its case,
sugar crystallising and re-melting.
Taste me slowly. Let me melt
into the granules of your tongue
like icecream on shingle.

Make me zing like lemonade
after strawberries, like sherbet
on a rod of liquorice. Make me
flesh and sponge, sweet
and sour, savoured, swallowed,
assimilated. Make me muscle.

M.A. Griffiths

If you've any comments on this poem, M.A. Griffiths would be pleased to hear from you.