Will This Be On The Test, Asked Gretel Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

my shelves are laden with a gum-drop sufficiency
cackled the witch, anticipating.
provender of peppermint, white chocolate bark

for roof repairs, from all the chewing.
oh they'll be strewing rose petals through the woods
I expect, on the way...or something silly

but I've whole layer cakes to make them stay, and chocolate
cherries if it comes to it and it isn't even Christmas yet.
and petit fours leading up to the door and more

of yummy this and that and a lake of malting cream
all foamy pink beside the
sticker bushes.

the meager rabbit hutches.
and so she thought and planned her day.
reserving a small amount of toffee

to munch on with her morning coffee.
but something in the oven burned
while she sat churning on her churn

and the oven door balked as if it wouldn't be opened.

putting a crease in the butterscotch grease,
scorching the cinnamon pottage.
foreshadowing, hinted our instructor

while we highlighted this in raspberry,
rapidly, in our notebooks:
an off-day

at the candy cottage...

mary angela douglas 20 june 2014