Three halves
Help yourselves, Alex says, places chocolate on the table, and opens the wrapper, silver wings on all four sides. Three of them, at one end of the table. Charlie cracks a chunk free, one whole end of the bar at a jaunty angle, and eats it at face value, grinning both ways. Kim takes the lead from Charlie, now. No glance at Alex, now. Kim who made nothing clear, takes the other end, hadn’t meant, perhaps, to break so much off. But now the bar is split again, up to Charlie’s break. Kim’s break veers away, leaving Alex a scant triangle, just one stretch of the straight edge. Kim halts, paralysed, staring at Charlie, who doesn’t help. Kim eats it all, Kim who needed Alex’ help at the start. Breaking the sliver in two, and handing one half to either side, Alex says, help yourselves.
Steph Morris is a writer, translator, artist, gardener and cyclist, graduate of the Poetry School / Newcastle MA in Writing Poetry. He lived in Berlin for many years, now based in London where he was poet in residence at Bonnington Square and House of St Barnabas with the Poetry School’s ‘Mixed Borders’ project. twitter: @herr_morris