Her Yorkshire Puddings
Every Sunday he insists on beef
from Boggs’s butchers, a forty minute drive
away. Mother has no respite from that blasted
gas oven, her apron, or the vegetable peeler.
Her Yorkshire puddings disastrous,
until she fakes it with a packet mix.
Complicit I wait for the oil’s spit and spatter,
ensure his head’s buried in a book,
the television always muted.
I give the nod from the door
while she tips the powder into a bowl,
adds milk and a beaten egg.
Slapping the batter with her best
wooden spoon, she ladles it into
twelve little wells. After twenty-five
minutes, the puddings are worthy
of cookbook status, the electric knife
on its side, its snaggle teeth jammed
with steaming beef. Piling four slices
on his plate alongside three crispy Yorkshires,
she throws a sideways smile my way.
He tucks in with relish and oblivion,
muted compliments between mouthfuls
in nods to her tenacious grit, as we
sit barely breathing, the air
Sunday tight as an overwound clock
week in, year out, praying
he’ll forgo dessert.
Lorraine Carey’s poems are widely anthologised and have featured in Magma, Spelt, Prole, Poetry Ireland Review, The Cormorant, London Grip, The Stony Thursday Book and The Broken Spine among others. An Agility Award recipient, she’s working on a second collection.