Toast

Jam on buttered toast.
The most delicious thing I know.
Warm and creamy,
spiced with a slight blackness.
Sharp with fruit,
sweet.
A most delicious thing to eat.

Yet here I sit, in this cold hole.
Shivering.
As far from food as far goes.
Water drips down green grey walls.
No sunlight falls through slit windows.
No warmth,
or buttery sweetness.
No feeling of complete delight.
No hope of day, each hopeless night
of bones, and chills,
and weakness.
Sponge gums.
No good thing comes.
No toast.

© Mark Sheeky. Permission is required for reproduction.