i told my children those junk plums left at the bottom of the grocery bag were not perfect when we put them in the bag but they were on sale and good enough for a family that doesn’t get many plums so now that they are mangled and losing their juice to the bottom of the thin green bag i struggled so mightily to remove from the dispenser we are still going to cup their mangled flesh in our hands we are still going to eat them however inelegant that might be we are going to pour the remnants into a tiny cup we are going to celebrate the fact that there is still fruit in this world that won’t always be the case
originally appeared in Rise Up Review
Darren C. Demaree is the author of eleven poetry collections, most recently “Emily As Sometimes the Forest Wants the Fire”, (June 2019, Harpoon Books). He is the recipient of a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louis Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.