Canned Peas (poem)

Canned Peas

Sun and Earth have never cared

For our conceptions

We mark our days

Of revolution and rotation

Plant our fields in rows of linearity

Productivity from an inch of topsoil

Once regarded solid land as value

Pulverized ten shades of yellow

From the residue of coal and gas

Trucked away the slag and massed

Dumps where streambeds ran

Water finds new channels underground

And caustic rain

Soluble soft diatoms dissolve

Veins of a brittle skeleton

Unbeknown the shell cracks

Eaten through beneath the skin

It snaps

The rain falls

The bottom of the sodden bag gives way

Eggs crunch to the pavement

One by one

Canned peas roll and come to rest

You bend to search

Not hidden behind the wheel, but there

Poised on the storm drain’s brink in the eddy’s current

The hillside thunders down

Canned Peas

The Nutshell Hatches

(2020, Stephanie Foster)