Poem by Rachel Burns

The Copper Jar

Poverty tastes of broken glass
in the playground, of boarded up windows,
of black mould eating damp wallpaper.
It tastes of the dole queue,
long dark shadows forming
on the deflated lung of ex-mining villages,
in a street called Hope, where none can be found.

It tastes of empty docks & padlocked gates,
abandoned factories strangled with fireweed.
It tastes of clenched teeth, of money lost,
and lost again on one armed bandits, and in bookie shops.

Poverty tastes like the bottom of the copper jar
10p for a handful of potatoes,
you chip & fry in hot oil, eat with simple salt.
Stop crying, eat, eat, you say,
lifting your toddler into his highchair.
You can taste poverty like hard metal on your lips.
It tastes of fear, of not being able to feed your own child.

This poem first appeared in The Cry of the Poor, Culture Matters.

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Rachel Burns is published in literary magazines including The Rialto, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Atrium, The Friday Poem, Magma and The London Magazine. Her poetry pamphlet, A Girl in a Blue Dress, is published by Vane Women Press, and her first collection is forthcoming with Broken Sleep Books.

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