Consoling the Cherry Tomato
by Kasey Stewart
Oh, acidic cherry tomato how you pop and
ooze listlessly between my incisors
exuding the seedy, gelled mass
that exists at your center
for my teeth and tongue to explore, experience.
I’ve hated you for years
but tonight I understand
where you stand
a fruit from the vine
the underdeveloped sibling
of the beefsteak, the B.C. hot house, the plum,
inferior, bursting with potential flavors and textures
inside of that thin skin, tightly pulled
unappreciated by many a diner.
at once, I understand your plight.
I, too, ask only to be tasted
less the need for a price sticker or that vegetable wax
applied for sheen.
oh, cherry tomato,
diamond in the rough.
Kasey is holdin’ down the fort in Waterville, Maine. She is a recent graduate of the University of Maine, where she majored in English and completed a collection of poetry entitled Corporeal Memory as a culminating project. Her heart’s stuck somewhere between Portland, OR and Bellingham, WA, and she hopes to settle out that way in the fall to dive into the literary scene.
