What's with these new tomatoes?
I was thinking,
Slicing open Styrofoam fresh
Green- and white-laced planks
Of unripe seeds chemo-gelled in place:
Tomatoes were once real.  Growing
Up on the old homeplace, I remember,
We grew our own
Fresh vegetables, fresh fruits--
The ones in straight rows, the others in knotted groves
But both smelling and feeling
Rough, real, and alive with growth
While we picked them at the source.
Of course the only things you bought
At market were the non-food stuffs.
Nothing beats a mother dinner
Of field peas and okra, squash with pearl onions
Afloat like gems in that strange goulash
Of corn, ham, mashed potatoes and gravy
Runoff-- streams down from the china hills
Feeding that middle valley lake--
Which forms only in the center of family
Plates piled high with old time cooking;
So unlike the modern geometry
Of those precooked, symmetrical portions
Which always stay perfectly microwaved
Into their own lonely corners
Of meals that are now just inconveniences,
Conflicts in scheduling....
Funny how the sharp sweet pain
Of an old, water-stained knife
Brings you back just when you forget
What you're doing-- I put my finger right on it--
And releases the flow of crimson
Memories:  she never cut herself.
Of course she always used to find the real
Tomatoes, still, somehow available
In her well-traveled, sunlit world;
But one always hidden from me
In the darkness and confusion of the lost
Last year of my solitude.  I
Think I better run this under
Water, try and wash away the sting
Before it becomes infected,
But as I lay down the knife
And move towards the cool water
Faucet, a foaming alarm sizzles and snaps
My attention back to the stove:
My pot is boiling over.
I hesitate, caught between
Bleeding into an empty sink
And the steaming, burning mess
That has become my dinner.
But suddenly I open
My eyes wide, shut
Out the surrounding scorched life
And scalded agony of my night--
I remember the date:
Tomorrow would be our anniversary.