Anyway

You said you loved me more than cake –

   I doubted your intentions.

You said you longed for me the way

sandpaper longs for knuckles –

   I wondered what this meant.

You said you’d wait for me until

the stars themselves had vanished –

   I thought this quite unlikely.

You said that you had carved our names

across I won’t say where –

   I hoped you used a mirror.

     

I said I did not need the promise of the moon –

   you said I couldn’t have it ‘anyway’.

Banality

You yearn to pulverise a bag

of Walker’s cheese and onion crisps

with your bare fists, shouting, ‘Take that,

you bastard cheese and onion bastards.’

The first blow proves to be decisive:

the bag explodes at either end;

the crisp diaspora has spread

too far. This isn’t good enough.

You’d only got as far as ‘...that!!!.’

You find the packing tape, repair

the bag, replace the crisps, then wind

the tape around the bag some more.

The second, third, fourth, and fifth blows

prove far more satisfactory.

The strengthened bag’s resilience

impresses you. You get a hammer.

Not wanting to destroy your kitchen,

you take your bag of crisps outside

and place them on a Black and Decker

Workmate, where they await destruction.

You hammer crisps and swear out loud

all afternoon till all that’s left

is your undoubted mastery

over a bag of Walker’s crisps.