Poetry by Clare Best

Kitchen table after market

Here, Pink Fir Apple potatoes,
wine-dark venison steaks,
onion chutney glowing amber,

a stowaway date and walnut loaf,
two thick ropes
of pork and apricot sausages

mysterious, heavy,
cold in their plastic bag.
Here, fat wedges of rindy cheeses,

tales told over scalding cups of tea,
that back-to-school
chill in the air.

The sun's trapped
in this pattypan squash, that honey jar
is bottled summer, and these

are the leaves
of promises farmers grow.
Look, courgettes: plump green babies limbs,

a bundled spectrum of rainbow chard,
eggs, smooth and cool
as seawashed pebbles

and homemade apple pies, sugar-dusted,
wrapped, waiting
like secrets to be shared.