One of our loyal customers, Anna, shared this poem with us that she wrote celebrating vegetables! We love seeing people integrate art and food. Both are integral parts of communities!
Wanting to be fully transparent, be advised that one metaphor in the poem is slightly PG-13-ish, though not at all explicit.
Enjoy!
Peaches and Blueberries by Anna M. Simson
Tonight I passed a city bus
shrink-wrapped in a plastic condom
printed in full color with a close-up view
of a
lunchable
And I got the same feeling as when I pass
a grown person dressed as an avocado
in front of a store handing out flyers
The butter biscuit
took up the whole back of the bus
and neat fingers of bologna were stacked
on the side
from the driver’s seat to the tail lights
And I realized I missed my dream job
as a televangelist
for fruits and vegetables
Let me sing the praises
of the sweet interior of a lemon cucumber picked in late August
covered in soft prickles
Or a jimmy nardello pepper
summer-saulting toward the earth in
a perfect frozen pirouette
Or how one bite of an O’Henry peach can make me
start planning to bake a pie
the way other people might start planning
a tropical vacation
I know I have tapioca pearls hiding
in the back of a cabinet
Somewhere
for just this moment.
Once I ate blueberries from the freezer section of whole paycheck
that tasted like ice tea
Blueberries so good I bought them
every week for my son, so that
his first memories would also be of these
blueberries, tasting like ice tea
But there’s probably no money in this job
I have to quit dreaming, but not today
One more day of
dreaming
of blueberries that taste like ice tea
Of cucumbers, and peppers
And san Marzanos and basil
I love this poem. I can feel the prickles of the lemon cucumber and sense the chill of the frozen blueberries.