TONGUE

 

Pudding Bag Lane:

There are five in England-

all cul-de-sacs.

 

I grew up near such a sac

in Thurlaston, Warwickshire.

But it wasn’t called Pudding Bag Lane

because it was a dead end…

 

A pudding bag is a cloth pouch

in which an uncooked pudding

is boiled, so this is a place where

people once baked in a circle;

an enclosed pocket of industrious

story-telling

dream-making

soul-bearing and

past-sharing;

infinite histories spooled

from the tongue

and intricately laced into the

cloth of the pudding bag.

 

Of course, this is all untrue.

But it is a real story.

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© Sujatha Menon 2021

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