Strawberry
by Hana Ferguson
We lay in mounds, in lonely fields
that are flooded with red bodies–
our fruits baking, ogled by gnats
and we are picked night and day,
our seeds spread without a thought.
You know, the female part of the strawberry
is the soft fruit–
teeth sunken in, bit by bit
juice dripping from stubbly chins.
Hundreds of pistils are fertilized while
their eyes glow dark under the moon–
cycles breaking, but continuing on
as the grit and dirt ache our own teeth,
biting back the words and defeat.
Maybe they will never know
that lonely feeling of being thrown to the crows
as we are forced to become tarnished, forever rotten.
Our crops are bountiful yet we are
left to shiver, cold under the moon
Until the sun comes up to admire us again.