I watch the women
in the packaged garden,
limp plumage sprouting from their hind end
pockets,
promise discounts
on nearly everything.
Pull delicate tools
from their jeans-
fingers that slide across
steel pods,
searching for imperfections,
reading the injured gains
like braille.
Damaged shells
mean discounts.
Isle 10 of 20,
offered in the rows of steel,
on the highest metal bough,
the most succulent,
sacchirine,
fruit
is basting in its own juices.
The women spot it
through shining prisms
of a glass hull.
Forget what you have seen
on commercials
or "Leave it to Beaver" shows
where women always sacrifice
in order to save,
picking quantity
over quality.
We sacrifice not only to save,
but to gain.
The women scale
the box tree,
each hoping they reach
the harvest first.
Although they have to walk
half the distance
of the store,
from either direction,
to climb clumsily up the vertical garden,
knocking over carefully planted rows,
falling backwards,
spilling into scraped knees,
they seek it out.
Although their cupons do not offer
a single discount for this-
the most expensive
fruit in the whole of the place-
they want it
because they know it will deliver
what nothing else
can.
I watch a multitude of Eves
reaching for the fruit
with the most to sacrifice
and the most to gain,
and all the Adams standing
feet planted on the ground,
next to wire grid baskets,
holding up dull,
shriveled,
overrippened, fuzzy balls
from the ground
saying,
"But honey,
this will save us three bucks."
"Then you eat them,"
shout the Eves,
"surely you could use
some balls."
And they climb on. |
Submission Name: Packaged Garden
