The freshly harvested bountiful crop of fruits and vegetables
take the farmers' market tailgate stage
crying out to mingling uncertain gawkers:
I'll keep illness at bay
I'll save money
I'll make you feel good
I'll restore strength
I'm locally grown.
Jalapenos, on display by themselves, strut hot flashes of flavor
Still dirty carrots suggest birth place fertilizer
Peaches picked too late fear flavor will be missed
Misshaped heritage tomatoes downplay ancestry
Sturdy, ruddy potatoes claim center place to mask blandness
Seedless watermelons deny impotency
Red Delicious apples tout their hearty core.
None name the brown hands that plowed, planted and picked.
Bill Petz lives and writes in the mountains of western North Carolina. His work has been published in Status Hat, The Ashevillle Citizen-Times, The Chronicles of Higher Education and Artists & Writers Quarterly.