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Poem Of The Week: Eton Mess By Laurie Bolger

Eton Mess

she added whipped cream
took the knife without fuss

smashed the blade through
and watched the meringue

crack like every bad man
she was ever taught to love.

Laurie Bolger's poem is conspicuous in its brevity, like a stage whisper. Much weight is contained in its single, identifiable action: in an explosion of derived, double-edged meaning, the reader is left to piece together a 'mess' of experience and motive, as the protagonist purposefully smashes her way through the metaphor, as if it were an antagonist's head.

There is ambiguity in her act, encouraging speculation as to female subjection, male misogyny, and even complicity in the inheritance of self-destructive decisions, but most we are obliged to consider the often brutally one-sided nature of relationships, and the vicarious compulsion for retribution. As Bolger's final, corrective couplet hoves into view, the invisible mirror dividing narrator from subject appears to shatter.

'Eton Mess' is taken from Spin, published by smith doorstop (2024).

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