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  • The God of Sugar (Sugar Shed, Greenock)
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The God of Sugar (Sugar Shed, Greenock)

Vicki Feaver

Cavernous – and empty now –
no shouts of dockers,
no barefoot women shovelling
molasses – it has the chill
and hush of a cathedral.

Like a pilgrim arrived at a shrine,
wanting something to touch
for a vision or sign
that a saint or god is there,
I rub the tip of my finger

against the rough bricks
of the wall and lick, tasting
sweet dirt, seeing, shining
in the gloom, an obese boy¬
like Elvis in a sequin suit.

What prayers should I offer
to this god of sugar?
Most fitting and proper,
prayers for the slaves
drowned in leaking holds;

or for those who survived
the voyage to the Caribbean
to cut the cane, lashed
until their backs were striped
with festering wounds.

Or prayers for the child
who spooned golden syrup
from the green lion tin, dribbling it
in spirals to form amber pools
in her porridge; who stole

from her mother’s purse
to buy red-tipped sugar cigarettes;
who ruined her teeth
on lollipops and seaside rock?
Prayers for the woman

who still craves sweetness:
savouring strawberries dipped
in the sugar dish, gobbets
of crystallised ginger, figs
almost rotten with ripeness?


Vicki Feaver

from Yonder Awa – Poetry from the Empire Cafe (Glasgow: Collective Architecture / The Empire Café)

Reproduced by permission of the author.

Tags:

capitalism colonialism diet empire Glasgow gods Poetry By Heart Scotland post-1914 sensations slavery sugar

About this poem

This poem was commissioned by Alastair Cook as part of the Filmpoem project for Absent Voices; the film can be viewed here. It also appears as part of Yonder Awa, a collection of poems featuring Scottish and Caribbean writers. The collection explores Scotland’s historical relationship with the North Atlantic slave trade.

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Vicki Feaverb.1943

A poet and teacher of creative writing, Vicki Feaver is now an Emeritus Professor of the University of Chichester.
More about Vicki Feaver

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