a food-centric poem not as good as Sandra Beasley’s food-centric poems

                  and certainly not nearly as good as Beasley's "Biloxi Bacon" poem                                         

at the vegetable bins

at the Stop & Shop

at the corner of Plymouth

Avenue and Rodman––

Rodman street where the old

water-stained bus terminal sat,

the cucumbers were

puny. they looked like

basque peppers.

I asked the young fellow

who seemed to have no more

than a fragment of life left to himself

when away from his apron, why.

he said I dunno.

his apron was stained in red

like you’d see at the meat-

cutter's station where it’s cooler.

but the guy in the apron

said: "it’s the strawberries, not blood"

and I said sarcastically: 

"I hope the strawberries are in better

shape than these puny cucumbers"

and he was right. they were.

for another take on basque peppers

locate my poem about Napoleon’s

embarrassing, well-travelled postmortem pickled penis.