Plum Fun
I should raise a glass,
to raising hogs,
fattening them on canned plums
that as a kid,
fell from the trees from which
I wasn’t allowed to eat.
Oh, I stole a few
spitting their pit
as juice dripped
down my rounded belly.
They were warmed from the sun,
and I suspect, also from hate,
for old women with no one,
to love are like that.
Kinfolk can be the worse,
when it comes to kids eating plums
I hear her now, inside my mind,
“Kitty wants plumbs, Edith wants plums
Ananna wants plums,
don’t eat the plums,
I plan on canning all the plums,”
Twenty-years later,
I grinned as I took hundreds of jars of canned plums
From the shelves
In her basement,
carried them to the pig pen,
dumped the content
into a trough
and watched oinkers
pig-out on plums
that as a child
I wasn’t allowed to eat.
Being who I am,
as I dumped the jars of plums,
to the pigs,
I said, “Boss Hogg wants plums,
Miss Piggy wants plums,
Pearl wants plums,
Spot wants plums.”
My grin was big,
as I looked across the yard,
to where a row of plum trees,
used to be and there was not a single one
left to shoo kids from.
Much later and in the fall,
fresh pork tasted
plumb good.