Pickup Poem Day 1

Potatoes By The Bag

Past the grass-mist scent and dazzle

of Fall tones, behind hothouse sweets:

the long bed of bulbs and sleepers. What

did the news say about how long the danger

could live outside its host? Best grab

a personal cellar, uncut diamonds and polyvinyl.

This is the shopping grandparents fought

wars to forget. On the plastic is stamped

the dry weight and a notion of old

farms in cold states. Tonight you’ll use

a few. Then the long race against

the widening green halo, the morbid

dents, the green shoots running for light,

eyes fed by the body—things that happen

after you tire of the simple starch

of survival.