This tin, wherein

You rustle, bustle

Shake and share,

Is where you’ll find

An invite of the formal kind

To connect and get confected!

 

Our costume ball

Will now enthrall

Your senses.

We’ll wrap and twist

And strut our stuff

And boil up toffee

Till you’ve had enough.

Perhaps, a little nudge

Of good behavioural economic fudge

Might tempt you?

 

If not, just there in damask rose

Is posed a strawberry blonde for your delight.

Another more exotic, draped in

Sapphire chiffon wrap

Promises a deeper bite of paradise.

How long, indeed, can you resist a complicated

Love triangle intensely rich and green?

 

La Belle Dame now in your hand:

The Purple Empress with the hazel heart

Oozes as she smoozes all around you;

Deluxed and crunched, gold fingered:

You’re left penniless once more.

 

Dappled papers lie abandoned now

Amongst the bent metallic foils,

And in the swirling sadness, once more you mourn

The coffee cream, the peanut cracknel,

The ghost of nougat from Montelimar.

Their fate of course is bitter sweet:

These live no more on Quality Street.