Damson Cheese

I watched you stir a jam pot
when I came up to oven height.
An alchemist’s work station
would not have held more wonder.
Testing to see if it was set, a hot dropped
glob was a molten jewel.

Your stern warnings not to touch
charged the air with a compulsion
to touch, the way a museum sign does.

The sterilised jars shone with clear purpose,
and that small disc of waxed paper,
respectfully laid down onto the poured
claret gel, sealed the deferral
to a time that wasn’t that day.

We had potted something transitory:
concentrated some of that year’s
light and promise and care,
sliceable as gleaming beetroot.

I have few of your home-making skills
in this age of progress. I feel
I am without a buttress.

As all the other jars come and go,
still it sits at the back of the cupboard,
hidden in a dark corner, graced
with your hand.
Grand in its unassumingness.

The empty drift of days, months,
years mount up beyond the glass
of this memorial.

i.m. Elsie Florence Brock