Rebecca Wadlinger
I cannot shake this banana sadness.
I cannot stop lamenting their disease
and almost-guaranteed extinction
from a fungus. Did you know
there are banana scientists?
That once there was a banana
named Gros Michel,
and Gros Michel was a bigger
and tastier banana, but lo and behold
it got a disease (like ours will,
in five or ten years) and Gros Michel died,
like all our bananas will die,
and no one seems to care.
Overcome by the lack of concern
regarding terminal fungi
and the impending banana apocalypse,
I return home to mate my socks.
My socks are lying in a basket
waiting for their other halves.
I go to great lengths to find their match
if it is not with the rest, and because of this
my socks are grateful.
There are people who refuse to buy non-identical socks
because mating them is hard, which to me
seems lazy. I have so many questions
for these people. My first question is,
When did you stop trying?
At the bank I stop to look at the painting
of roosting white peacocks,
and wonder if my natural affinity for birds
is compounded by my appreciation for painting,
and if that makes these peacocks
aesthetically superior to real peacocks.
The bank is made from limestone blocks.
Though it is not something we notice much,
millions of tiny fossils encrust it.
I will spend my life trying to explain
what is crucial to me.