We Never Had a Henry Hoover

We never had a Henry Hoover,
But my grandma did,
Under the stairs.

There,
Infant me would find:
- A curvy, bright orange sword (a plastic shoehorn)
- Powerful infrared night vision goggles (binoculars for birdwatching)
- An enviro-suit for travelling deep in the tundra (a mac)
- And stacks of important documents (which were actually stacks of important documents that I shouldn’t have had my hands on).

Next to the cupboard was the kitchen.
Ever-present odour of
Cigarette smoke, and
Cold shoulders, and
Past events I’d learn about when I was older

A chicken in the oven
For grandma and grandad
And a wrapped up frozen vegetable pizza on the counter
For my family; we were raised vegetarian.

But in the depths of the kitchen,
A secret the untrained eye could easily miss,
There lay a fabled paradise,
A stash of promised booty,
Treasure told to be so nice--
Chocolatey and fruity--
Lurking behind a broad, cork-board adorned door,
Filling youthful guts with gluttony for ever more;
The larder.

Mars bar Shangri-la
Lucozade Zion
Choc-ice paradise
Fill-you-up-to-utopia.

For infant me,
Somewhere there would surely wait
Beyond the single pearly gate
An El Dorado of sensation
A tribute to Britain’s confectionary creations

A trail of crumbs
Followed me and my chums
Up the stairs to the shared bedroom

If grandad saw it—oh, boy
I can’t imagine the discipline he would employ
But luckily, we were always saved,
By a benevolent force,
Snack-thief-apologist grandma,
Of course,
In one swift manoeuvre
Hiding our sordid crumbs with her
Henry Hoover