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!
