Mrs Todd Poem by Llewelyn Griffiths

Early morning
Pastry-filling-crust-oven
Pastry-filling-crust-oven
Pies churned out nineteen to the dozen.

5 dozen meat pies lay upon the work surface
Line after line of pies
marching to there doom
Like soldiers
Every pie representing a human.

She looked down upon her fingers
They were worked to the bone
Her knees were shaking under the pressure
She was sick of pies,

But continued she did
Because she loved her husband so.

Late afternoon
8 dozen pies now
getting closer to their demise
A steady fleet of customers trickled into the high street shop
Ordering pie after pie
and eating soldier after soldier
When stock grew few
Mr Todd offered a special discount or two.

Sweeny had told her to never interrupt his work
Otherwise, he might. Slip.
But she had worked for 9 long hours
And hadn't seen her beloved for what seemed like decades
The rickety stairs creaked
She halted ready to knock
She was too desperate,
She flung the door open with the greatest ease.

And she soon became a soldier.

(This is a poem about Sweeny Todd's wife (who I invented for the sake of this poem))