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A zesty poem about growing old with women friends.
To Diana
I have forced you to eat the fruit,
you have forced me to grow it.
What a pair we are, the growers
& eaters. Yet while I gobbled art,
theater, & depraved men, you grew son,
daughter & widowhood. I spread out
plates of green, seedless grapes,
your eyes swallow them whole.
You may yearn for purple Concord, or
Italian wine, but you eat nonetheless.
When we are old, careless,
without men, we shall sit in hammocks
& eat from our laps. Dressed in flowered
cotton & battered hats, we shall laugh,
grow fresh salad in the yard & eat.
The cats will narrow their eyes at us.
We will stare back like neutered queens,
lording it, eating earth, sky & wild romaine.
Published in Rattle, Issue 9, Summer '98
Beverly Jackson lives in northern California, she writes full-time on a good day. She has published short stories in Zoetrope's All Story Extra and ezine MindKites, and poetry in many different literary journals including Lucid Stone, Rattle, Saturday Afternoon Journal, Chiron Review, Spillway Review and In Posse. She also has a large stove with several back burners on which a novel and two screenplays are at a low roil. ......................Email address:
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