Midnight Roast

By Jemima Stocker

Late at night we share a beer in the kitchen while your new girlfriend showers upstairs / I watch you eat labneh out of the jar and thoughts jump off your tongue into the air like creatures that crawl into my ears and stay there / You tell me you only eat at night because one Christmas nearly twenty years ago you had a second roast dinner at two am with your brothers / And ever since you’ve been chasing that feeling of standing barefoot in the light of the fridge / Your three older brothers reaching over the top of you / Like cartoon characters / Tearing legs off chickens / And you, piling your plate with ham and roasted apples and mustard and cauliflower and potatoes and herb sauce and mayonnaise / And that feeling just refuses to be caught by you /

But sometimes you get glimpses / When you eat labneh out of the jar with one of your three friends / While your new girlfriend showers / And you talk like you know how to dance or like you understand history books / And you will never go to bed full / Just in case there’s a chance for another midnight roast.