Sat Chit Ananda

chocolate cup cakes


in delicate white
corrugated casing
right up to the icing

on a plate on a
table cloth in the
house of a friend

shoes left outside
so not to ruin
the clean beige carpet

or the strip
of parquet in the hall
so when we ran

and shouted or
dropped dead
shot by a colt 45

it was only our
clean socks sliding
on the polished ice-rink –

at the signal
hands washed for neat
paste sandwiches

no cake until
these savouries were gone
washed down with tea

and then of course
the giggles as the amber
tea cascaded

into china cups
as if from somewhere safe
where it had always been

until at last -
the cup cakes
first bite through smoothness

into crumb-
ling cakeness
and more to taste

as icing melted
on the tongue
munching sweetness

which led in time
to more giggling more
amber from the pot