Fucked-up tomato

Fucked-up tomato
Fucked-up tomato

Your flaws are mine
You grew in my apartment
I hope that I helped
I used the soil
From a fern I over-
-loved and watered

Can you tell?
Do the ghosts of other plants
Still linger
In the mulch you sit in?
Are you ever alone?

Fucked-up tomato
Fucked-up tomato

Your sins are mine
Inherited from the day
I left the ground
Three floors below
To live in a box

That’s stacked
Above and below
With abstract neighbours
How can this be right?

Fucked-up tomato
Dearest tomato

Your strength is mine
Your fragile sweetness
Is mine to consume
In the world’s worst salad
With mozzerella

From the supermarket
50 yards away
That I went to
All through Covid.
How can this be right?