Mama's Peppers

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I witnessed in a root

that stood in my mother’s garden

Brown burning water to mud

            then dust,

 

Polluting veins required for breath,

        for leaves hanging like clipped

                     butterfly wings.

 

Fruit plunged into pits,

        to worms and beetles,

        who bite the sting of sweet,

                       savor the green,

sun-made peppers sprung in red and yellow,

filled with more seeds than watermelon.

 

Abandoned not by soil,

but stiff hands too frail to pin them

        on fading arms, splintered.

 

Rough earth shell,

shriveled like cranberries

        I am addicted to

 

Hold,

hold,

hold on.

 

Green, red, yellow

        stripped to hues.

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