Marge Piercy (1936-)
Attack of the squash people
1And thus the people every year
2in the valley of humid July
3did sacrifice themselves
4to the long green phallic god
5and eat and eat and eat.
6They're coming, they're on us,
7the long striped gourds, the silky
8babies, the hairy adolescents,
9the lumpy vast adults
10like the trunks of green elephants.
11Recite fifty zucchini recipes!
12Zucchini tempura; creamed soup;
13sauté with olive oil and cumin,
14tomatoes, onion; frittata;
15casserole of lamb; baked
16topped with cheese; marinated;
17stuffed; stewed; driven
18through the heart like a stake.
19Get rid of old friends: they too
20have gardens and full trunks.
21Look for newcomers: befriend
22them in the post office, unload
23on them and run. Stop tourists
24in the street. Take truckloads
25to Boston. Give to your Red Cross.
26Beg on the highway: please
27take my zucchini, I have a crippled
28mother at home with heartburn.
29Sneak out before dawn to drop
30them in other people's gardens,
31in baby buggies at churchdoors.
32Shot, smuggling zucchini into
33mailboxes, a federal offense.
34With a suave reptilian glitter
35you bask among your raspy
36fronds sudden and huge as
37alligators. You give and give
38too much, like summer days
39limp with heat, thunderstorms
40bursting their bags on our heads,
41as we salt and freeze and pickle
42for the too little to come.
Copyright 1982 Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy Alfred A. Knopf
Notes
26] highway: high roads in The Moon is Always Female (1980).
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
This poem cannot be published anywhere without the written consent of Marge Piercy, Leapfrog Press or Knopf permissions department.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: © Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982): 248-49. 811.54 P37.6 Toronto Public Library
First publication date:
1978
Publication date note: Shankpainter 17 (Fall 1978): 21; Marge Piercy, The Moon is Always Female: Poems by Marge Piercy (Alfred A. Knopf, 1980): 64-65. PS 3566 I4M6 Robarts Library
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 2000.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/11
Composition date:
1978
Composition date note: (Circles, 299)
Rhyme: unrhyming
Other poems by Marge Piercy
