Eating poetry

In Competition No. 2895 you were invited to submit a poem describing a meal with a well-known poet. Sylvia Fairley tucked, somewhat reluctantly, into albatross with Coleridge, D.A. Prince shared cocoa with Wendy Cope and Rob Stuart enjoyed a curry with Dante. Well done, all: it was a top-notch entry. The winners take £25. Frank McDonald nabs £30.
 

‘How do you like your eggs?’ the waiter says
And with a smile Elizabeth replies:
‘How do I like them? Let me count the ways:
I like them scrambled, sometimes served with fries;
Or smiling at me like a golden sun
Inviting me to spill delicious yolk;
Or boiled hard as when in Easter fun
I used to roll them, like religious folk.’
I touch her hand and say: ‘Let’s take them fried.’
And with a gentle giggle she agrees.
The waiter stands and watches, mystified,
As though she had been speaking Portuguese.
She turns and says, as he regards her, frowning,
‘We’ll have some toast — with just a hint of browning.’
Frank McDonald/Elizabeth Barrett Browning
 
‘I’m Nobody’, her wan Voice breathes
As we sit down to Tea.
‘I taste in every — Crumb — a faint —
Yet full Sufficiency.’
 
Her Flask pours out a golden Dram.
‘This is no — earthly Wine,’
She murmurs, ‘but for Souls — that thirst
’Tis sovereign Anodyne.’
 
She cuts a Slice of Cake to fit
A frugal Appetite.
‘Repleteness,’ she explains, ‘for me
Were but infirm — Delight.’
 
With every Bite or Sip we share,
A Century expires.
No Timepiece can surmise the Span
Our Nourishment requires.
Chris O’Carroll/Emily Dickinson
 
After a beach-walk, so bracing and brisk,
Home to the kippers, the bangers, the jam —
Fresh eggs to be scrambled, oh! hand me the whisk!
Let me frisk up the yolks! Let me plate up the ham!
 
There is bread to be toasted, and butter to spread,
As the sunlight pours in as if warm from the churn,
And here is my girl who has bounded from bed:
See her muscular fingers agog at the urn!
 
The bacon is sizzling, the corn flakes are shaken,
The newspapers rustle with yesterday’s scores,
Out on the front all the loungers are taken,
But my darling and I are as happy indoors!
Sir John doffs his boater, and scoffs up a bloater,
With avuncular noise, but a gleam in his eye:
And now he has asked me for use of my motor,
And now I must wave him and Mabel goodbye.