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Glenday, John: Tin

Portre of Glenday, John

Tin (English)

(the can opener was invented
forty-eight years after the tin can)
When you asked me for a love poem,
(another love poem) my thoughts
were immediately drawn to the early days
of the food canning industry –
all those strangely familiar trade-names from childhood:
Del Monte, Green Giant, Fray Bentos, Heinz.
I thought of Franklin and his poisoned men
drifting quietly northwest by north
towards the scooped shale of their graves
and I thought of the first tin of cling peaches
glowing on a dusty pantry shelf
like yet-to-be-discovered radium –
the very first tin of cling peaches
in the world, and for half a century
my fingers reaching out to it.



Uploaded byP. T.
Source of the quotationhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/books

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