Overgrown 
(A poem recounting my coach's immigration experience and his favorite fruit, a scarcity in Ukraine.) 
 
Because they revered bitter skies, 
the aisles are littered with  
banana shells. 
 
In Ukraine, they were children looking up at skeletal phloems. 
 
On the top shelf,  reach out for priceless tags  
dwarfed by its pearls and gold,  
 
"my first" he says,  
 
but nevertheless expired bounty,  
worthless peels hoarded. 
 
Once held up the garden:  
nameless nails  
tannin faith  
 
not Eve who ate the carcass   but the hope of the vultures  
Now bodies lay before them in a row. 
 
 
They must 
 cross  
the grocery aisle, 
 
along the Atlantic   leave a blossom to decompose, 
 
plant the root,  bury the unripe seeds. 
 
 
Over west, gathering pollen perch, 
gaze across sickly peels   bountiful harvest 
   Miss Chiquita's overgrown marrow. 
 
Clamor past the sliding doors 
 
  toss yellow into the pit. 
In America,  they search for the flavor of destruction and set fire to their mansions 
        made rotten, 
 
Decadence, plastic-wrapped opulence 
they could not believe: 
 
"We are grateful to be here now."  
 
They huddle under the blanket of well-done flesh.  
 
Full aisles, unscathed. She   reminisces  
of sweetness   grainy 
and trees 
bearing Zacchaeus who climbed  saw   tumbled,  
regurgitating. 
 
 
Now I sink my cavity-ridden fingers into pulpous pudding.  
 
spit it out 
  
 
We had always looked up to the banana.  
 
From the tree we were wrenched but emerged doubtlessly unscathed.