Still Life
On the bright green countertop
three porcelain plates,
filled with Jersey tomatoes, navel oranges,
red bell peppers, bananas, and plums,
avoid fleshy skin bruises and await their fate.
Farm-to-table, grocery to-counter,
organic and conventional,
which will last the week?
Time to slice, mash, poach and peel,
sauté wrinkled peppers and onions,
simmer spotted tomato gravy,
blend speckled bananas into smoothies
juice softened oranges,
bake pinpricked, pitted, purple-plum tortes.
Who scrutinizes my outer edges
determining whether I am useful or spoiled?
When I am bruised and old, what will be salvaged?
On the green countertop three porcelain plates
filled with tomatoes, oranges, peppers,
bananas and purple plums, wait to be used or discarded.