Poetry Monday

Lime Pickle

by James Lasdun

Your father, not yet divorced,

Rosy-cheeked from the Garrick,

In his Savile Row pin-striped suit

Presided over the feast.

He spread the menu like a general’s map,

Plotting his debauch

On the virginal palates

Of his teenage daughter and her first “chap.”

In our singular innocence

We had tasted nothing stronger

Or stranger than each other’s lips,

But your father’s extravagance

(It broke him later)

Shoaling in salvers on the table

Under the tabla’s gulp and throb

And the moan of a sitar

Made our mouths water.

Unlidded, the dishes sizzled;

Spiced, cream-rich, sprinkled with edible gold;

A taste of our imminent future,

Though what I recall

Most clearly twenty years on

As I read his obit in The Times,

Is the spoonful of lime pickle

He tricked me into eating;

His harsh laughter

As it burned like a living coal

On my astounded tongue

Which however has learned

His own preference for mixed blessings,

Having grown sharper since then,

And somewhat thicker-skinned.