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Poem With Metaphors Like My Grandmother's Neighbor
The soill of your garden is tainted.
The plants that struggle there are blighted---
their leaves shriveled, their stems twisted.
The flowers leak a bitter fluid---not the
usual sweetness I like to taste. Bees will not pause
there, and the fruit is taut with the inner
pressure of a reekingly, rancid pulp,
Why, ever, bother to put this up as
preserves?---in those ungainly jars you
inherited from your great-grandfather
(overseer of slaves on a rich man's spread).
Spiders will not cast their nets around that shelf
that even the flies avoid for the stench.
The butter knife---stainless steel (guaranteed!)---
corrodes after the spread of that slime across a
loaf's mouldy, worm-ridden heel.
These preserves are certainly not fit for human
consumption. Perhaps you have prepared them for
demons that dwell in your haunted halls; drizzle some on
brittle crackers as appetizers before you become their first course.
Starward
