Cherry Tomatoes
Little bastards of vine.
Little demons by the pint.
Red eggs that never hatch,
just collapse and rot. When
my mom told me to gather
their grubby bodies
into my skirt, I'd cry. You
and your father, she'd chide—
the way, each time I kicked
and wailed against sailing,
my dad shook his head, said
You and your mother.
Now, a city girl, I ease one
loose from its siblings,
from its clear plastic coffin,
place it on my tongue.
Just to try. The smooth
surface resists, resists,
and erupts in my mouth:
seeds, juice, acid, blood
of a perfect household.
The way, when I finally
went sailing, my stomach
was rocked from inside
out. Little boat, big sea.
Handful of skinned sunsets.
Notes
Where Suji Kwock Kim’s Monologue for an Onion chided the cook for weeping over an elusive inner core, Sandra Beasley’s Cherry Tomatoes pulls us into the immediate, uncontainable burst of summer’s sweetest produce snapping open beneath the tooth. The sudden explosion of seeds and taut red skin captures the explosive tension between self-containment and vulnerable surrender, illustrating how the drive to hold oneself rigid inevitably yields to the violent, joyful rupture of appetite that can neither be swallowed whole nor politely restrained. It grounds August’s theme of Feast in the messy, delicious hazards of late-summer indulgence, reminding us that true culinary and existential pleasure requires risking the stain on the shirt just to taste the wild surplus of the garden. #poetry #sandrabeasley #feast #august #cherrytomatoes
From Theories of Falling by Sandra Beasley. Copyright © 2008 by Sandra Beasley.