March 21, 2023

the uncooperative asparagus

Despite the purple band gripped around its bottom stalks. Despite the basket—wicker
nesting the bundles. Despite the tidy partition at the front of the cart. Despite 
the metronome of the conveyor belt and the beeps of the register noting its passage 
down the line. Despite every guardrail designed to keep it from escaping, the asparagus 
at last eluded the thick hands of the bagger, who finally gathered it, roughly, 
along with a sheaf of eggs, into a canvas bag that read “I Am An Artist,” and where 
it listed against a steaming globe of roast chicken and a stack of sponges, its tips jutting out. 
Aren’t we, too, bumping along the aisles, passing through the turnstiles of our lives 
slippery with freedom, despite the very shapes we’ve made 
to contain us?