<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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The Butter Paper<\/strong><\/p>\n My mother\u2019s ghost She would have scraped and scraped it then smoothed it between her palms not scrunched it up I feel her presence, too, in the light switch War-child, self-denier, She wore herself thin <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Melanie Branton<\/strong> 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<\/em> and The Interpreter’s House.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Butter Paper My mother\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9937"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9939,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9937\/revisions\/9939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nhaunts the creases of the butter paper
\nlike a child trick-or-treating
\nin a greasy paper sheet<\/p>\n
\nwith her bone-handled knife
\nblade whetted to tuilerie
\nby years of use<\/p>\n
\nfolded it mathematically
\nput it in the cupboard
\nto save for greasing cake tins<\/p>\n
\nthick globules of butter still hanging to it
\nlike plump yellow bogeys
\nand shoved it in the bin<\/p>\n
\nclicking disapprovingly
\nwhen I flick the upstairs landing light on
\nwithout extinguishing the downstairs passage first<\/p>\n
\nhoarder of rubber bands and Jiffy bags
\nnostalgic for the discipline of rationing<\/p>\n
\nthat I might have these freedoms<\/p>\n