Ray Rasmussen

Recovery

How strange for tears to well up while pushing a cart through the linoleum aisles of a grocery store. Are they because I'm once again on my feet after three bedridden weeks from this season's influenza? Or are they more related to the fear I had felt? My daughter had recently suffered the same sickness. As I left for the store, I thought of asking her, Did you feel even for a moment as if you might not make it? But I knew her answer would differ from mine. 



The rattle of cart wheels brings me back to the task at hand: soup for the return of appetite. I want the thin broth that my mother brought to the bedside when I was sick. But then I find other mouth-watering possibilities: butternut squash, ginger carrot, sweet potato, mulligatawny, creamy potato leek ...



winter melon soup–
the anticipation
of my lover's kiss

Previously published in Haibun Today 4:4 December 2010.