Stephen Robertson

Slanting Lines

A trifle
(with double cream)

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”

            —G.K.  Chesterton

Dr Foster went to Gloucester

for a summer spin—

and liked a lass from Lancashire;

so milk-white was her skin.

In Cheddar Gorge the chaffinches

were twittering.  The twain

with anglo-saxon attitudes

then to Caerphilly came.

They lingered long in Leicestershire;

red was the evening sky.

By Derby town they settled down

on purple sage to lie.

A Cheshire cat accosted them,

then walked his wild way

alone.  In Swale- and Wensleydale

they passed the following day.

Of shoes and ships and sealing wax,

and such great themes as these,

talking they walked and walking talked—

but never once of cheese.