Poem by Bartholomew Barker

Click to listen to the poet read the poem:

A Southern Farmers Market

Summer sun freckles your shoulders
I follow your cotton dress
Between stalls carrying canvas bags
Soon overflowing with booty
From our morning expedition

Cauliflower white yellow
And unbelievably purple
Fondled by your whisper long fingers
While choosing the ideal
Head for greedy consumption

Greens mustard collard turnip
Fibrous deep verdant
Leaves that will shrivel
To potent nutrition
With vinegar and fatback

​The canvas cornucopia
Spills across our kitchen table
You prepare a lunch
Sharpened with flavors
Purchased mere minutes ago

We eat on the deck
Ignore air conditioning
Feed each other blueberries
With our lips reveling
in primal nature

Bartholomew Barker is an organizer of Living Poetry, a collection of poets in North Carolina. Born and raised in Ohio, studied in Chicago, he worked in Connecticut for nearly twenty years before moving to Hillsborough where he makes money as a computer programmer to fund his poetry habit.
www.bartbarkerpoet.com

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