Don’t Take Your Fish and Chips Outside

Prompted, unwittingly, by my lovely mum, Audrey Mitchell, during a day out at Barry Island.

Don’t Take Your Fish and Chips Outside

Don’t take your fish and chips outside
Don’t lose those golden wedges, triple fried
For the moment you step out you will be spied
By that predator of portions, beady-eyed

The Gull circles high up in the skies
Watching as you tuck in to your fries
Then, wholly uncaring of your cries
It swoops down to steal away its prize

You may screech and flap your arms in fright
You may hold on to your meal with all your might
But that greedy gull takes one enormous bite
While barely slowing wingbeats in its flight

And all you can do is stand and stare
As your lunch disappears into thin air
Leaving you in a kind of sad despair
But the Gull, hunger sated, does not care

So if you don’t want your chips to go out with the tide
If you don’t want to stand there mortified
Take my free advice, swallow your pride
Don’t take your fish and chips outside

S P Oldham