In the early married
years (secretly homesick)
I was forever making soup.
Big potfuls bubbling
daylong on the stove.
Tasting, stirring wide
across the pregnancies.
Filling up the house
with warm, good smells
to come in through the door to
from the cold outside air.
Building a home,
making a circle,
out of carrots,
out of cabbages.
And now it seems
we eat in separate cars
in separate drive-thrus,
or at the kitchen counter,
hardly sitting,
in quick turns.
Letting out a few words
around mouthfuls,
between the opening and
closing of the door,
the telephone.
The big round table
patiently waits,
cluttered with mail,
sighing to herself.
And I want
suddenly
desperately
to make soup.
An enormous, slow potful.
Filling up the house with it;
pulling us all back in.
-- Deb Cooper