Give me your heart
and I will show you
a dried tomato,
withered from too much
sun;
its seeds shrivelled
from too much exposure to the
heat.
and I will show you
a dried tomato,
withered from too much
sun;
its seeds shrivelled
from too much exposure to the
heat.
The skin of this tomato
is pinched and thick:
good protection
from the sun and the rain,
from words and tears.
I suspect there is a whole other life
under this coarse exterior,
but I will never pierce through it
in time to save
the salvageable flesh within.
I think
in our world
we could live without
tomatoes.
--
John RC Potter is an international educator from Canada, living in Istanbul. His poems, stories, essays, and reviews have been published in a range of magazines and journals, most recently in The Serulian (“The Memory Box”, September 2023). The author has over a dozen upcoming publications in the coming months, including an essay in The Montreal Review. Web: https://author-blog.org Twitter: @JohnRCPotter IG: jp-ist