Eleanor Livingstone

Re-discovering Custard

for Karen

Late October all bluster, pins of rain and the breeze finding its way beneath every door.

Not a day for ice-cream despite the offer chalked white on the blackboard above our heads.

The waitress shrugged, brought us a pot of tea with a promise worth the wait.

It arrived in state, huge platters, each with a slice of fat molasses sponge

a pool of caramel, and a generous jug full of creamy yellow goodness

thin, no lumps, no skin. We spooned it up, spooned it up, as sweet as days can come.

Eleanor Livingstone is a poet and editor as well as being StAnza’s festival director. Her first full collection, Even the Sea (Red Squirrel Press, 2010), now in a second edition, was shortlisted for the 2010 inaugural London New Poetry award for first collections. Her other publications include The Last King of Fife (HappenStance, 2005), A Sampler (HappenStance, 2008) and as editor Skein of Geese (The Shed Press, 2008), Migraasje: Versions in Scots and Shetlandic (Stravaigers, 2008), Bridging the Continental Divide (StAnza, 2015), Necessarily Looking Backward (StAnza, 2018) and The Arch (StAnza 2019).

StAnza brings poetry to audiences and enables encounters with poetry through events and projects in Scotland and beyond, especially their annual spring festival in St Andrews. www.stanzapoetry.org Facebook: stanzapoetry Instagram: @stanzapoetry