Mutton Pie

White on grey, smoke unravels

coughed up by a cinnamon spin

of mutton and spice, garlic and rice

3 seats for a family of four.

Close-by,

two scrupulous bedrooms,

where full-bellied children sleep-

indifferent to tastes, burns and burnt tastes,

And a Master room for one.

There she smells

the lingering scent of cinnamon and spice.

Unable to veil traces of heated passion

from where he lies tonight,

working late.

A secret is no secret when denied

simply a sadness, betrayed by quiet eyes

like those belonging to mother of two-

children of whom-

must not reveal the flames of his woo-

her his (that is).

In his eyes,

she sees the remains of another reflection

since he cannot hide

where the other lies in them-

his her (that is).

This scorned collection

of soiled familial dignity

is damning for her.

It holds no place outside the home

so it must overflow

off the burnt edges

of tonight’s mutton pie.

Out of the oven too hard and too late

with a smell left to diffuse

through spaces where it has no place;

and into someone else’s night.

Tomorrow

he will carry the smell home,

until it mingles and rises

into a better-baked mutton pie,

through the windows

into a loveless sky