The Butter Paper
My mother’s ghost
haunts the creases of the butter paper
like a child trick-or-treating
in a greasy paper sheet
She would have scraped and scraped it
with her bone-handled knife
blade whetted to tuilerie
by years of use
then smoothed it between her palms
folded it mathematically
put it in the cupboard
to save for greasing cake tins
not scrunched it up
thick globules of butter still hanging to it
like plump yellow bogeys
and shoved it in the bin
I feel her presence, too, in the light switch
clicking disapprovingly
when I flick the upstairs landing light on
without extinguishing the downstairs passage first
War-child, self-denier,
hoarder of rubber bands and Jiffy bags
nostalgic for the discipline of rationing
She wore herself thin
that I might have these freedoms
Melanie Branton lives in North Somerset and teaches at an FE college. She won the Bristol regional final of the 2015 Hammer and Tongue slam and has recently had work accepted by Prole, Message In A Bottle and The Interpreter’s House.