There is a bakery in the village
where I grew up which stacks

slabs of parkin in its window
every morning. Imperfect rounds

of soft, crumbly cake, bronzed
like tuppence, but medallion sized.

Simple heraldry, spiced with ginger
and nutmeg and cinnamon.

They smell like an oven, like
loaves for childhood communion.

Fourteen years since I first left,
and Midlands farm shops stock boxes

of chewy biscuits, pretenders, coppery
counterfeit. I am syrup-sick with longing,

with a hunger which brings me home. 

First published in Frazzled Lit.