My Mother Made Me a Cake for My Party

It was shaped and iced 

like a skirt for a princess, 

around an inserted plaster doll. 

She and my aunty spent hours

on painstaking details.

Another, a simple sponge,

had a section cut from the top

filled with dark green jelly, 

dotted with bought ornaments

(lilies, frogs). Easy! 

That was the one we children loved.

The illustration, included according to Fair Use, is by Erté (Romain de Tirtoff). Today in Flash 55 PLUS! at 'imaginary garden with real toads' we are invited to use one of his works as inspiration. This one, 'Costume of the Louis XV period', immediately threw me back into that childhood memory — though the skirt made of cake was more elaborately decorated.

Now You've Gone and Done It

For Rae

When he wished me Happy Birthday,

I emailed back: '75. So I'm having

a week at least of celebrations. How 

are you going?'  'Running to catch up 

to you,' he said. 'Panting.' (He was

two years younger than me.) But now, 

18 months later, he's gone and stopped.

How could you do that? Now you'll never

catch up! Or is it I, now, who'll always be 

trailing, unable to catch up with him?

Poet Rae Desmond Jones (1941-2017) and I knew each other slightly for many years, and were aware of each other's work, but only really became friends late in life, via the internet. In those recent years I came to treasure his humour, intellect and very sweet nature. I'll miss him!

Linking this to the latest Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads', where change is a theme.

Pubiished in HAVE YOUR CHILL, July 2018