Today’s poem is from a prompt from
over at Poetry Pals (full post here). responded to the prompt as well with her delightful strawberry poem, which was one of the first things I read this morning (Tara’s poem is here). This is Nelly’s prompt if you’d like to jump in with some delicious food poetry:Your Writing Prompt For This Week:
Shall we go pick some ripe fruit, stir in a little sugar, swill down some hot tea? Shall we go and flirt with a baker?
Writing ‘poetry about food’ might feel a bit broad, so in order to focus our attention I wondered if we might write some poetry about a favourite food this week. Or at least a poem that contains a favourite food, it wouldn’t of course need to be about said food. Nor, necessarily, your favourite. A food that we could happily obsess over, perhaps.
As always, if you’d rather just dive on in to a full banquet then tuck your napkin under your chin and get started.
Tonight I am making black bean soup a recipe from my good friend Beth when we were both pregnant with our second boys at an unhealthy church where we all felt squished but didn’t know how to know that not yet. The black bean soup is so easy to make and she prepared it the night I started contractions. I ate two bowls, unsure if I would eat later. We ended the meal with me deep in labor. Tonight I found myself wondering if I could zest a bright lime straight into the pot. Then I thought Of course. Of course I can do that. I can add lime zest to whatever I want. The sour-sweet smell of it is my favorite. One evening my husband made salsa from scratch and when he laid next to me on our bed I could sense the lime wafting over our heads. I grabbed his hands, bringing them close to my nose breathing the scent as deep as I could. My husband isn’t phased by much but even he seemed sweetly puzzled, saying I can cut up a fresh lime just for you. I said no, holding his hands to my face breathing in that slanted, sour taste.
I haven't thought of limes like that before - love the image of you grabbing your husband's hands to smell that "slanted, sour taste!" Also this makes me want to eat black bean soup!
This reminds me of a boyfriend I had in high school, who peeled an orange every day for lunch, and how my favourite thing about dating him was that he held hands with me after, and that I could smell the orange on mine for the rest of the school day.