December 2025

December is here, and the days are noticeably shorter and chillier. What better way to warm up a winter’s evening than with a mug of hot cocoa? Alexander’s poem ‘Cocoa’ from the collection I Think of You muses on the moral benefits of cocoa before bed, and this book is in fact the perfect accompaniment to a comforting hot drink in the winter months.

Cocoa

Sound is the advice of nurse and mother:
‘A hot milky drink taken just before bed
May not be what you want, but you are wrong,
Just as you are about many things: troubles
Are rarely as bad after a mug of hot cocoa.’

The purveyors of such advice usually practise
Exactly what they preach, lead blameless lives,
And die, in their beds, in their nineties;
Those who spurn cocoa tend to be more troubled,
Think themselves above such anodynes,
Lead a boisterous social life, have hypertension;
Listen, then, to nurse and to mother,
There is a peace that comes with compliance:
In the arms of cocoa is sweet oblivion found.

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Alexander’s collection of poetry I Think of You is available from his publisher Polygon (£12.99) hardback, and his forthcoming collection The Kind Company of Others is also available to pre-order.