Given a hefty pumpkin
I was unresolved what to do.
'Whadrye going to do with that?'
my usually enthusiastic partner in crime
warily queries.
'Um, I'm not sure... maybe... soup?'
He rolls his eyes Chaplin-style -
he doesn't like soup.
The pumpkin is cumbersome,
tight, bulbous, waxy, resistant.
It probably needs a machete
but I wield a cleaver
instead.
I have never made pumpkin soup
but I too am resistant...
to recipe.
Garlic, I decide, onions, vegetable stock...
The soup begins to form itself.
It's been a hard winter
and the parrots have already cracked
the plum seeds sheep have thoughtfully
s c a t t e r - b o m b e d
throughout the paddocks.
I strew the pumpkin seeds with relish.
The skin
I have laboured to liberate
I fling cow-wards - there!
Some soup I will take to my neighbour
whose third wife has recently
flown the coop
the remainder I will take to work
to share.
