Oatcakes in Hanley Market, Friday

 

It was foretold in the cobbles,
in the knowing clatter of pigs’ trotters 
stumbling in the gaps between 

the watchful eye of the bobby

and bobble-hatted boys 

wielding power in sticks 

before they drove double-deckers 

between trestles and traders
on headscarved patterned pavements 

before Joan’s Cafeteria
where order and ordered are reflected

in tiered cakes and overall stripes 

before these marketeers
bantered over the size of sausages

with someone that could be my nana. 

before the Coffee Pot café
where my Stokie oatcakes arrive 

cheese oozing from crinkled layers

 

towards the gold-bordered edge

of this white china plate
ritually flipped for a makers mark.