I cut through the park
and there, tucked in the grass
was a banana, fresh
from the local grocery store,
unripe, green tending to yellow,
with a label stuck
to its thick skin.
I felt for a minute
that the sky had cracked
and through the crack the whole
weight of recorded time
bore down upon me there
and stomped me to the ground:
a bug smushed in the dirt.
I saw transactions fired
on Sumerian tablets,
Monsanto share prices
dancing on monitors,
growers to market in
wooden–wheeled carts
and refrigerated Boeings.
A mother buys the once–
exotic flesh for her son’s
Star Wars lunch box special,
and he, bored of the same old,
has the freedom to toss it onto
the grass in the park where
it will rot to a brown mush.
