I am a firm believer in the importance of small things.  For most of us, whether or not the last person to use the loo put the toilet seat down, is of far greater moment than whether or not the beleaguered President of Brazil is going to survive the latest scandal and with her, the country too.  No, how you squeeze the toothpaste tube; how you place your knife and fork when you have finished your meal; which side you put the glasses and a million other things govern most lives.  Somebody saying, 'thank you' sincerely = a good day; the Euro approaching 80p = who cares?
     Which is not to say that we shouldn't be concerned, or that I am not concerned with what is going on in the world today.  The first refugees being returned to Turkey = I am ashamed to be European.  But this poem is not about the big things, it is about the little things, or one little thing: the biscuit you get when you order a coffee, or in my case, a cup of decent tea in my local leisure centre.
     The splendid lady in our leisure centre cafe greets me each day with the encouraging, "¡Hola, guapo!"  She did so today and then realised that they had run out of the little foil wrapped biscuits that she lavishes on me.  She did not know that I have saved 'extras' to cope with such deprivation, so I just shrugged and went to my accustomed seat.
     The poem is really about what happened next.  In my notebook, after I had written a few lines of notes, I wrote "Is there a poem there!  I laugh as I write!  Tho', there again . . ."  I really did laugh out loud at the thought of writing about something so seemingly trivial, but I have developed the possibility expressed by those three dots and written the poem, so it will be up to you to decide if it was worth the effort!

Vergüenza

He asked the English word for it,

and I responded, “Shame.”

“Then I am shame we have no

bis-quits for you tea!” he said.

But with a flourish of his hand,

triumphantly revealed three

mini-Oreos in saucer cupped,

like three, black, resting, ladybirds.

And like a hungry swallow

I swooped down and ate them all.

           

Where was my diet then? 

           

            There are

exceptions to my regimen:

and ‘unexpected treats’ is one.

He did not know (how could he,

I am sly about such things)

that I had stockpiled

‘extras’ from the previous weeks,

from all those times

when I’d been gifted two

‘bis-quits’ instead of one.

My ‘regimen’ (just see above)

will not allow my eating both,

and so one’s tucked away,

(end pocket in sports bag)

for just such opportunities.

Broken?  Yes, most certainly.

The bag is bumped

and squashed and strapped

and pushed.  But my bis-quits

retain integrity, at least

in outward form,

through the unruffled,

foil-bright skins that

hold the crumbled, jigsaw-skeleton

of what was firm and whole.

My pen attempts a moral –

but Oreos (even very small)

have left a flavour in my mouth

that satisfies enough.  

Toni has never really got over the fact that I have written not one, but two poems about flies!  "When," he asks, "are you going to write about something normal?"  I fear that this poem will not satisfy or answer that question.  Though I have to say that I did enjoy writing it!