IT”S MADE OF WIRE

It’s made of wire.
No, let’s be more specific.
It’s a piece of wire.
A piece of wire twisted round itself, with a loop at the far end.
It looks like a stiff metal lasso.
There’s an egg slicer too,
some plastic moulds
to make pastry shapes
and a brush thing:
it’s not a brush,
it’s a thing that looks like a brush,
but you couldn’t possibly use it as a brush
because it’s two inches across
and the bristles are two inches long
and a quarter of an inch wide.
(I suppose you could use it to brush spilt salt
into a neat pile
or, if you were a masochist,
to dust a room, very, very slowly:
but that would be just silly)

They are in a forgotten drawer
in my late mother’s kitchen.
We are clearing the house.

Suddenly I am seven years old again.
Lassoing a boiled egg with the wire noose
and burning my fingers
as I try to manoeuvre it into the egg cup
- I was as cack-handed then
as I am now -
or burning them even more
when I peel the egg while it is too hot,
so I can experience the wild, destructive delight
of forcing it through the ridiculously inefficient egg slicer
and watching the bits go everywhere.
Stabbing the pastry with the mould
Grabbing the shape
Sprinkling some sugar on it
and running into my bedroom to eat it raw.

Raw pastry with sugar sprinkled on it: 1
Jamie Oliver: 0.
No contest.

And the brush?
Mum painted the pastry with it.
I thought it was odd
to paint food with a brush
but it always tasted good
so I didn’t care.

The wire lasso
and the plastic shapes
and the egg slicer
go into a carrier bag.
One of many carrier bags
which go into black sacks
which go into the back of my car
which goes to the tip.
At the tip
I empty the other bags first:
Dusty flower arranging stuff
Faded dressmaking patterns
Old W.I magazines
Rotas for Mum’s cancer counselling group
that stopped years ago:
all the residue of a long life
we can’t possibly find homes for
and, given the mementoes I have already selected,
it would be pointless to keep.
As the last bag
with the kitchen stuff in it
hits the floor of the skip
it carries a little bit of me with it
and the next morning
I wish I had saved the wire lasso
and the egg slicer
and the funny brush thing
- and that is ridiculous.

It is ridiculous, isn’t it.

Isn’t it?

So I wrote this poem instead.
I've saved them here.
I feel better now.