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Red Velvet Cabbages

Jenny Blackford

Oct 01 2013

0 mins

 

Red velvet cabbages

Red velvet cabbages flop heavy-scented

on prickly sticks in the sea air. She who
pruned and planted them walks now

almost as slim and proud as twenty years ago,
before her body turned against her.
No one could forget those perfumed breasts.

My tongue tastes tender scarlet crumbs exploding

from red velvet cake, three years ago and
half the world away; and, distant as the dinosaurs,
the man across the table, his clever mouth on mine.

 

Jenny Blackford

 

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