Fresh blow to fruit & veg growers after watermelons linked with salmonella outbreak
The Grocer, 3 February 2012
Tender as freshly fallen snow,
dripping like a honeycomb,
no seed to spike your throaty slurp,
no need for a spittoon
to catch that arcing pesky nut.
This ultimate vainglorious shoot
from an ancient vine, brought to the west
from the heart of Africa,
first by the Moors and later slaves,
a horticultural chimeric fix
brought to ripe perfection.
This sweetest fruit is a coddled child,
nursery raised in its own cot-bed
of peat, no rival sibling claim
to fear or elbow aside.
Shallow-bedded on a gentle mound
of sandy loam first blanket warmed,
surrounded by a wide dry moat
to occupy and own,
greedily it suckles on sunshine, hoarding
from earth and sun a sweet estate
no heir shall ever succeed.
Bloated in its tangled cot
it hides its ripeness, rather to rot
where it lies than yield to the anxious grower
the nectar in its vault,
its perfected flesh, bought at the price
of sterile ground, so easily lost;
yet be wary of reaping too soon, this fruit
will not ripen off the vine.
Watch out for greying tendrils, for a yellowing
soil-scrubbed rump, for dulling and leathery
skin too long in the sun.
(c) 2012 Slush Poet
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