Tuesday Poem - Kohlrabi Soup by Jan Owen

Kohlrabi Soup

How it trapped the dust,

the stucco façade of that old square house

the colour of deepest heaven

behind the oleanders’ poisonous pink.

Half the back yard was an offering of scarlet tulips

like a ritual letting of blood.

In the other bed the lymph-coloured kohlrabi

craned on their purple stalks,

slowly gathering the will to walk.

The father, young and newly ill, had begun

in desperation to build a catamaran,

safe outside in the shed.

By five pm, the hemmed-in kitchen was already dim.

She had finally made him the kohlrabi soup

and put it to cool on the bench.

When he came inside,

the babies, latched in their chairs,

were brandishing spoons and shrilling with hunger;

he yanked the plug

of the bakelite radio blaring against the din

and cut the cord with his knife.

Late that night she tiptoed into the kitchen:

the abandoned soup had set to a sinister pond

gravelly-soft as semolina, elastic as phlegm.

It was the exact colour, she saw, of the moonlight

mottling the yard of scattered toys

and the phalanx of triffids beginning to stir.

Over the scene,

a disappointment balloon

was drifting to if and when

the boat would be launched,

the family split,

and the small blue house knocked down.

Another wonderful poem from The Best Australian Poems 2012 - this time by Adelaide poet, Jan Owen.