My poem 'Relics: A Kitchen in Assisi' has been published in the May issue of Franciscan, the Journal of the Society of St Francis:
Relics: A Kitchen in Assisi
“Fruit cake from the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in 1981 is among five slices of royal wedding cake to be auctioned” The Telegraph, June 2015
I don’t know if St Francis of Assisi was handy in the kitchen, Whether he baked for the brothers Sponge concoctions, strange Shaped like the sugar structures of Giotto
Here a delicate pink, there white
The top tier resting on slender pillars over a bishop’s throne.
I don’t know if the holy kitchen Sometimes filled with the sweet warm smell Of cake in the oven, and the sound of brothers laughing and talking
But say it did. Would those brothers
have kept that bright confection, preserved it in a silver box with a scrap of tunic and a label, To be worshipped when the Saint was dead?
Or would they take it and eat?
I think it is more likely they shared it with paupers, and scattered the crumbs for birds.