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.