Mucca's Garden

Mucca’s Garden

Even if the berries
aren’t ripe—and
splotches of red
infect the surfaces
of the otherwise
delectable oblong
Marion berries.
I have an inherent
child-like, unyielding,
desire to eat the fruit
before my cousins get
to them. I admit,
(slightly embarrassed)
that I am twenty-two
and this has been
going on since
I can remember.

I have my fill and then
proceed to the blueberries—
each bursts inside
my mouth
in the most
satisfying of ways—the juices
stain my teeth, tongue
and lips
a faint plum—
always revealing
to my family, my
stealthy trips to the
garden alone.

Strawberries—rubies nestled
within a treasure-trove
of emerald foliage.
I have to be extra sly when
stealing these.
Garden spiders
lay awaiting my greedy fingers.
Their legs barely touching my
blind digits reaching into the
unknown. Each attempt to acquire
the hoping that my
luck hasn’t run out just yet—
And after I am sufficiently
full, and the vines and plants
have been raped by my hunger
I lie in the crabgrass underneath her plum tree.
It’s one of my favorites on her property.

As a little girl, I was unaware
those plums were homes
to the evil pit.
I dove into that first piece
of ripe fruit with fervor, and
ate the whole thing in entirety—
only to afterwards relay the information
to my mom that—
There was a rock in my piece of fruit.
To this day I have no idea how,
as a six-year-old I could swallow
something so hard and large.
But I was a chubby
and determined little girl
that always finished
her food—and that time,
I assume,
was no exception.