Mixed Fruit

by Anne Barngrover

I want you purple potatoes. I want you finger-
lings strong. I want you rainbow
carrots. I want you pink-eyed
peas. When I say you I mean you there—sweet
pickles in bathtub jars. Parlay of peaches.
Mayhaw pepper jam. I want you
pecan oil. I want you raw
honey in drums. I want you risen
and loaves. Orange nut want. Sour cream
want. Almond lemon poppy seed want.
When I say want I mean cloves
of want, slices of want, lickfuls and lickfuls and
wet spot. I want you muskmelon.
I want you pod and pole. When you come
around the air is meringue and moonshine.
Dirt slurs like pudding where we seed to flower.

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Anne Barngrover’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in such journals as Indiana Review, Nimrod, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Smartish Pace, among others. She will be a PhD candidate in Poetry at the University of Missouri beginning this fall.

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