Mother's Baking Tins (Poetry)

Before Teflon — the slick tarnish of years
of burnt-on butter
ensured a smooth turn out —
sponge after golden sponge
light-textured successes rose evenly
for every occasion.

Those tins did good service
each week on baking day
performed their conjuring on cue
rinsed off in steaming suds
left draining by the sink
while their perfect offspring cooled.

They had their music too —
the discordant clash of cymbals
as they stacked together in the oven’s drawer
alongside a battered roasting tin
brown as a dried out pond
sucked at by the sun electric

and all the ghosts of joints that wallowed,
sizzled and spat their Sunday songs
released an incense —
an aromatic haze —
these cheap tin vessels all that remains
of her old ceremony.