The Soup Kitchen
The Soup Kitchen
She made soup that kept the whole town warm
One by one they’d line up and request their usual
The soup experience was mid-way
Between pleasure and torture
As the limits of the taste-buds and the palates,
Unaccustomed to the spices of the Islands
Were put to the test
She ladled out the hot stuff, laid it on thick
And, as if not to be outdone
The compliments were equally effusive
The red-faced customers, perspiration
Dripping from their faces, ever ebullient
Would soon be on their way, leaving generous tips
She would continue to stir the big black pot
Adding ingredients, stoking the fire
Never taking her eyes off the bubbling, hot soup
Nursing it, churning it, tending to it like a child
Staring into it as if the answers to life’s questions
Lay therein, like the soup was to her
What tea leaves are to a soothsayer
She may not have had the answers to life’s questions
But many a truth was poured out to her in the ‘heat of the soup’ (kitchen)
The kitchen was a ‘safe house’ where people could leave their secrets
(People dropped their secrets like they were hot)
Little did they know that keeping their secrets was an impossibility
It was mid-way between pleasure and torture
As, unlike her big black pot, she was unable to hold
Steady.
She would eventually fall over and the secrets
Would pour out, scalding the entire town
Copyright © Terence Msuku | Year Posted 2016
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