Green Beans

I mentioned a few weeks ago that when I was in college I wrote a poem about Green Beans. I know you’ve all been dying to read it. It’s short, so don’t worry. I might change a few things if I were writing it now…but I decided to leave it as-is. Oh, and I must thank Miss Moose who found her copy of it from way back when. She’s taken better care of my poetry than I have. THANK YOU, Moose! So…here you go! A bonus mid-week post. 🙂

Green Beans

Her summer’s in jars,
pickled and processed, sliced,
a woman’s work.
Hours spend feeding her family,
preparing for winter’s freeze.
Her hands toughened, heart
sealed against her family’s complaints:
they don’t like green beans.

She absently tests each lid,
“quality control”, they call it.
They wish all the beans would spoil.
From the kitchen above a loud, “Mom!”
makes her jump,
and the jar she was holding, with the perfect seal,
the perfect “I do”, smashes,
and fills the air with the smell
of hot kitchen, burned fingers, sweat.

“What’s for dinner?” they ask
through the kitchen floor,
while she tries to gather up the glass and beans,
and the hands that picked and washed,
filled and processed,
stacked and dropped,
reach up, cut as they are,
and shove the remaining jars farther back on the shelf.

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