Marge Piercy (1936-)
Winter promises
1Tomatoes rosy as perfect baby's buttocks,
2eggplants glossy as waxed fenders,
3purple neon flawless glistening
4peppers, pole beans fecund and fast
5growing as Jack's Viagra-sped stalk,
6big as truck tire zinnias that mildew
7will never wilt, roses weighing down
8a bush never touched by black spot,
9brave little fruit trees shouldering up
10their spotless ornaments of glass fruit:
11I lie on the couch under a blanket
12of seed catalogs ordering far
13too much. Sleet slides down
14the windows, a wind edged
15with ice knifes through every crack.
16Lie to me, sweet garden-mongers:
17I want to believe every promise,
18to trust in five pound tomatoes
19and dahlias brighter than the sun
20that was eaten by frost last week.
Copyright 1999 Marge Piercy JOE
Notes
5] An allusion to the fairy tale, Jack and the beanstalk, and to the so-called "Pfizer riser," a drug that produces a hard erection in (sexually aroused) men.
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: © Marge Piercy. JOE 1.3 (1999).
First publication date:
1999
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 2000.
Recent editing: 2:2002/4/11
Composition date:
1999
Form: ten-line stanzas
Rhyme: unrhyming
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