Morning and night, I peel bananas.
Slice them into yogurt, tuck them
into sandwiches. Yellow wheels
in plastic pouches, sticky moons
on high chair trays. The average American
consumes 27 pounds of bananas
each year, which sounds low
for a toddler. Outside the kitchen
window, soft toys melt in the heat.
Bananas will be extinct by 2040,
along with frogs, orchids,
coffee, ferrets, and people.
Yet, I wash and fold each tiny T-shirt
and organize their drawers by color
and season. Yet, I boil bottles
and rubber teethers. Supermarket bananas
are sterile, propagated by cutting
suckers from the base of a mother
plant. Farmers measure them
in fingers before loading them off.
This planet will be scorched to zero
before my daughters finish high school.
Yet, I would choose them again,
my fleshy middle slumped over
the sink, knuckles sore from cutting.
Photo by Smabs Sputzer, used and adapted under CC.
