Body and Soul Poem by Peter Sirr

Minced lamb, apricot jam, milky bread
while onions, garlic, ginger soften

not having forgotten bananas, bay leaves
nor neglected

two eggs beaten into the remaining milk
the whole to be baked, and served

on a bed of saffron rice
details available

in most good newsagents, the one
still open, the sad small place

selling also socks in piles of six
grey, navy, black, set down in a basket

shrine-like near the cold shelves
where butter, milk, rashers, cheese

sit behind plastic veils,
the whole shop a shrine to the sustenance of desolation

oh purchasers of sombre socks and butter
the restless having woken

and hurried to the place, barefoot, breathless
pointing things out to the woman who sits behind the counter

in front of the cigarettes, beside the Lotto machine, near
the chocolate fingers; and exhausted walker home

from the far away party, the minced lamb, the low flame
under the heavy pan, the garlic, the onions, the apricot

light, the milky grass, the lambs dancing
in the planet's craters, the women sleeping on beds of ginger

entering in a dream to buy
bangles, silks, apricot jam.