Should I compare you to a bowl of soup?

You are less sloppy and more glutinous —

yet nothing could contain your bubbling gloop

so well as clay (twice fired and round you trussed).

There’s some mulligatawny in your mix

since spice and heat and noodles come to mind

and when I see you up to your old tricks

then bouillabaisse and bouillon seem too kind.

Gazpacho looks volcanic, just like you

but cools, as you do not, on summer’s night.

On simmer, you approximate to stew

with marrow-fat and bones in constant fight.

But ajo blanco added to your dish

would give me hope you’d turn out far less pish.

Fianna (Fiona Russell Dodwell) is from Fife and lives in the Fens. She has had about 60 poems published both in print and in online poetry magazines.