I used to love writing poems but it’s something I rarely find time for at the moment. This rare foray was drafted quite speedily, on the back of a napkin in a Hannover coffee shop earlier this year. The prompt was Joanne Harris‘ newsletter, inviting heartfelt chocolate-themed poems . I’m still not sure the title is quite right, but every word is true, so I thought I would share it here.

A Family Affair

At the corner of a cobbled, mizzled street

On our first morning in Prague

Golden shelves and bright tins beckoned

As a handwritten note on the window advised:

‘Please don’t tap on the glass!

It scares the chocolates.’

We lingered over the sweet display

Before selecting two coffee creams,

Later munched surreptitiously in a December courtyard.

The second day a pear ganache for Mum

And a liqueur truffle for me,

Encased in their glossy, cocoa shells.

I bought two tiny bears on sticks before we flew,

One milky brown, the other milky white,

For my small person’s Christmas stocking.

When nursery introduced a Feelings Wheel in January

And asked what makes him happy,

His reply was simple:

‘When we eat some chocolate’.