"We often eat soup,"

the only girl in school

with single-living-parents told me

when I asked what had changed

at the start of our playdate

 

We weren’t eating soup

that evening, but crumbling potatoes,

too-long-boiled cauliflower,

and a curdled sauce

made of flour and milk.

 

Anticipating,

I gobbled down

as many florets

as I possibly could.

 

Josje Weusten is a Dutch fiction author and poet who writes in English and lives in Belgium. She is an alumna of Faber Academy London and teaches creative writing at Maastricht University. Her debut novel, Fake Fish, was published by Sparsile Books in 2024.