The Cruellest Month

Hedgehog Slice; Spikey Creatures

Crush the cookies, leaving shards.
Your angry hands are a rolling pin.
Add walnuts, pecans or almonds,
literal, not figurative, nuts,
and a spattering of sultanas
like little rodent turds.

You are moody, and things
are not quite sweet enough.

Butter, sugar, vanilla,
cocoa, coconut, combine
in a pan over blue gas flame
for two, three minutes.

You stir briskly and deliberately.
You are tense, you are defensive,
you are prickly as a hedgehog.

Cool slightly, breathe rationally,
crack an egg, blend its colours.

Pour the mess over
the cookie-nut mixture
and press into a greased tin.

Drizzle with chocolate,
refrigerate until set,
then cut into perfect squares.

The decadent sugar hit
from so-called Hedgehog Slice
flattens your bristling spines
for three sweet minutes.


* * * * * * * * * * * * *


My unique hedgehog experience
was as flat as a sole.
Poor dusty grey-brown roadkill
on the wintery autoroute
by our broken-down blue Lada.

But I have seen the odd echidna
roll into a shiny, spiky ball,
wee beak in a cheeky smile,
safely assuming a monotreme
invisibility from the traffic.






April 6—hedgehogs in the wild or as pets