Two Dinners

The children click their bones together
They are happy; they are clapping.

A mother, humming and chewing a piece of gum,
Places a retro-inspired plate in front of her son.

A sister, frail and gaunt, stirs the last of the Mahango.
There are five of them. There will be enough for three tonight; the youngest will die soon.

Her son sniffs the dish, wrinkles his nose and throws the spaghetti bolognaise on the floor.

The five children, tearful,
Stare at the black, cracked pot of porridge in silence, licking their dry mouths.

His mother, irritated, warns him, "There will be no desert if you do that again." She bares in mind the Indian takeaway, left over from yesterday.