The Last Bit Of Cake (Earlier Draft)

for Eleanor Farjeon, forever

you should have come in when your mother called you
in from the damp and the dew
in your swiss dotted dress

with the transparent sleeves, your soft cloth shoes.
now all you will have from tea is the leavings
and only the raspberry dream.

only the raspberry cream, you began to sing
making up songs out of anything
the swan's feather

honeycomb, chimney smoke spoken bluer than blue
like a hair ribbon matching your petticoat
and in a foreign wind.

in olde tales the melancholy few
in the damp and the dew
you would have died of fever

on the day it rained
fading with the dreamers
down the lane

and when the sumac yellow
and leaf like flame fell in token
of your disappearing

november would reign.
but in my poem
you'll only get a scolding

and the last bit of cake.

mary angela douglas 22 september 2019