The Homewrecker and His Pun
She has high hopes for her white sauce
this Christmas. The roux glistens
from the wash and slap of milk,
as she lightens it a ladle at a time.
Her veins grow taut on her forearm
as she beats the buttery yellow mixture.
Droplets hit her skin and form small crusts
among archipelagos of freckles.
She’s positioned her radio by the stove
and between songs, the cartoon
her daughter’s watching in the living room
competes with the early morning announcer:
on the first Christmas Day, the angels
promised peace and good will on Earth.
She downs another sherry, her hand
less steady on the wooden spoon.
Her husband comes in, flushed from his walk,
a sprig of mistletoe tucked in his cap.
Though his affair happened last Christmas,
her eyes stiffen: you whore of a man.
He blames the drink for shifting her
into the sickness of every woman
he wants to leave behind. She doesn’t make it
to dinner and their child is left to wonder why
when she’s seen the béchamel burnt to flakes
in the pan, her father tells her don’t go
in the bathroom because your mother’s been
at the sauce and hurled it all over the floor.
Elisabeth Sennitt Clough was born in Ely and now lives in Norfolk with her husband and three children. Her pamphlet Glass was a winner in the Paper Swans inaugural pamphlet competition and her debut collection, Sightings, is forthcoming from Pindrop Press. Her poems have appeared in The Rialto, Mslexia, Magma, Stand, I,S&T, and The Cannons’ Mouth. www.elisabethsennittclough.co.uk