BANQUET

BANQUET

BANQUET

O squat round Banquet                        
margarine tub, your black
and blue SUPERSOFT letters,
                       
on permanent Special,
Sleek Sentinel, for weeks
you have held centre-stage.
 
Flanked by the HP sauce
and the salt, you’re one fifth
of the Kerrygold butter
 
we crave. Our throats                       
burn gold with the blur              
of the buttercup’s disc.
 
We freeze when the yellowy
ingot appears; it sweats
on its rose-spattered plate.
                                                                
O Banquet, Pale Champion
Duller of Hunger, observe us now
shovelling butter. 
 
It’s not a bit of wonder
it never lasts.