POEM APRIL 2025

The catbird is pecking away

at two ripe tomatoes.

I wave my hands and shout,

My tomatoes! as though 

I’d produced them

from my breasts or belly.

The catbird aerializes

on the tomato cage,

jabbing and jabbing the red fruit.

I have more on the counter

that I won’t eat before they rot,

or that I’ll give away.

It’s unseemly, this stinginess,

a memory of not-enough,

the necessity of preserving

a crop from rabbits and deer,

the otherwise marvelous

round-backed bugs, grasshoppers

flaring red underwings,

or birds like this one,

gray as a civil servant,

an actuary of ripeness,

that tilts its head to eye the fruit

and flaunts its rusty bottom

in salute.

— Valerie Nieman