poem containing a barley salad
if i could have dinner with anyone at all, i would always pick phoebe. and she would say, what, anyone? not even nicole kidman? and then, come on round, i am making that warm barley salad. and what she would mean by this is a michelin star dish with several exciting and unpronounceable french accoutrements. and i would say sure, but let me bring something. and what i would bring is a pot plant, because i wouldn’t dare rival her culinary skills.
i’m afraid that we must be getting old, since i am staring into phoebe’s dishwasher and thinking how marvellously well she has stacked it, and we are saying things like it works great on coffee stains and you’re probably due a tax rebate, with not even a slither of irony. and then i am not afraid at all, for this is evidence i have touched life with that strange palpability that turns most sage, and me? categorically boring. and we sit, and the dusk creeps in with it’s magical translucence, and like that, the courgettes are ready.
phoebe says be warned, this wine is cheap, and i say well, all wine is wine to me. and we put on some terrible movie, with mutant sharks and bad cgi, and concur it is a cinematic masterpiece only we are capable of appreciating. and phoebe says, of the barley salad, does it taste okay? and i say delicious. and to myself, how lucky i am, that i always may eat at your table, that darkness could never encroach on the rooms you inhabit. and on the bus home the town shimmers gently in its sleep. and the night sky is bright and brilliant.
Maria Woodford is a London based photographer and English tutor. She is the winner of the Telegraph Poetry Prize 2025, and shortlisted in 2024. She is twice longlisted in the National Poetry Competition.