Ripe

     Photo Grocery from Tess Kincaid

At the corner store                          

are piled apples, oranges, potatoes 

and onions enough

to make you cry 

with the cutting of them,

 but that just takes one.

And shoppers touch the fruits

and the vegetables -

I won’t even mention

 the ogling of melons,

or the squeezing of tomatoes;

that is too much

firm fruit for this page.

But there is this concentration

of life, of juices, of vegetable matter,

some of it is still ripening;

and though we cling to life like a peach,

out back, the dumpster

is full of molding pears and cabbages.

My dead grandmother used to say

when you are old

your skin gets rotten like a banana.

We are all

ripening and rotting,

every fruit and vegetable and shopper

reaching for a peach,

every person walking past,

too busy to stop

but not able

to rush, or race-walk, or outrun

their own mortality.

And in the end, we all end.

And it is sad, if the life, or the fruit, or the vegetable

was good at all.

But, despite the dumpster full 

of endings,

the store front 

still draws us in.

We want the fresh fruit,

the sweet bite,

the juices running down our chins.

So savor it,

beginning, middle, end.

This is for Magpie Tales writing group hosted by the talented Tess Kincaid.  Come join us!