----- Original Message -----
From: "Max Richards" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 2010 3:13 PM
Subject: snap: rum baba
>
>
> Rum Baba
>
>
> In a Hampstead cafe forty-seven
> years ago they waitressed together.
>
> Now my Auckland cousin Marie's over here
> mainly to see Shona while she can.
>
> In a Melbourne cafe they reminisce:
> 'pastries then were seven and six!
>
> who could afford that? - but,
> when we weren't flirting with
>
> Hampstead's handsome wealthy
> young male cafe-patrons,
>
> we could steal a Rum Baba each.
> What are these costing you, Max?
>
> Do I have cream round my mouth?
> I went back on my last trip
>
> and checked the old place out - that cafe,
> still the same worn leather seats.
>
> We humans are lasting well, though,
> aren't we!' Shona has a rare
>
> lung disease and can't walk far.
> Marie plays down her cancer scares.
>
> Me, I'm long overdue for replacement
> My Rum Baba is sweet as long-lost youth.
>
>
> Max Richards
>
>
Beautiful. "... to see Shona while she can" - the way this is placed,
abruptly and near the beginning, makes the relationships immediate to the
reader. Poem manages to be both neat and full of life.
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