Chippy Tea

Today we are to try our hand at writing our own poem in which something that normally unfolds in a set and well understood way — like a baseball game or dance recital – goes haywire but is described as if it is all very normal.

I struggled with to keep strictly to the path on this one, but hey, a bit of whimsy got served in the end.

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It’s Friday night,
She’s craving chippy tea,
But she’s a long way from home.
Sheffield is 3,228 miles away
North north-east.

It’s Friday night,
She’s craving chippy tea.
But she can’t walk the streets of this strange land,
It’s not allowed.
There are no pavements of cracked slabs, hardened gum and dandelions,
No rut- worn grass verges exist to list the steps she’ll take en route,
To the hallowed portals of the Church of the Battered Cod,
Where the Vicar, who wears Warm Vinegar cologne will ask,
“Do you want wet with that?”

It’s Friday night,
She’s craving chippy tea.
So, she takes the enormous car and drives for four miles.
To stop at the shop of permanently fixed, fake smiles.
Here her outer voice signals her status as alien,
If only people knew how to queue properly!
Her inner voice wraps its arms tightly inside its sociopathic coat.

I fear for my child abroad.
She is her father’s child – my fear is real,
And warranted.
Unfettered is our language,
Our spades are spades are spades.
Adaptation is more than possible,
But pretence and gaslighting is perpetually unacceptable.

It’s Friday night,
She’s craving chippy tea.
She settles for “fries” and some sort of filet,
She messages me, begging for mushy peas.
My heart weeps for the absence on her plate.

It’s Friday night,
She’s craving chippy tea.
She regales me with tales of faux pain,
And claims of rudeness against her name,
Here, in her new world in the new world
This seems to be the game.
She’s learning the rules, adapting again,
But,
I fear the news that may come one day
“Green card wife batters three men to death”.

Best send her a can of mushy peace,

Just to be on the safe side.

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