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The one that Julie Campbell baked and entered
in the raffle in those final days of primary school.
When the secretary called me to the office, I knew
I hadn’t won first place. Brought from where it sat
for years outside the entrance to the locker bay,
the table they’d adorned with bows and bunting
looked like something that might hold the crests
and trophies at a swim meet, or the nice things
at a rummage sale. My ticket closed inside my fist
I scrutinised the cakes: an outsized frosted chocolate
roll that Cindy Ayer’s mother made — the boughten
one from Tesco with a showy purple ribbon —
an anemic layered sponge encased in Tupperware —
the lid so worn and scoured it had turned opaque.
I ate it in a culvert with my brother. Our fingers
thick with jam we fed like lions — famished castaways.
Phillip Crymble is a physically disabled poet from Belfast now living in Atlantic Canada. A poetry editor at The Fiddlehead, he received his MFA from the University of Michigan and has been published in several poetry journals
in the raffle in those final days of primary school.
When the secretary called me to the office, I knew
I hadn’t won first place. Brought from where it sat
for years outside the entrance to the locker bay,
the table they’d adorned with bows and bunting
looked like something that might hold the crests
and trophies at a swim meet, or the nice things
at a rummage sale. My ticket closed inside my fist
I scrutinised the cakes: an outsized frosted chocolate
roll that Cindy Ayer’s mother made — the boughten
one from Tesco with a showy purple ribbon —
an anemic layered sponge encased in Tupperware —
the lid so worn and scoured it had turned opaque.
I ate it in a culvert with my brother. Our fingers
thick with jam we fed like lions — famished castaways.
Phillip Crymble is a physically disabled poet from Belfast now living in Atlantic Canada. A poetry editor at The Fiddlehead, he received his MFA from the University of Michigan and has been published in several poetry journals
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