Consider the Lowly Pea
RICKY GARNI
It is vulnerable to boiling hot water and baby teeth.
It can't jump very high.
It doesn't speak English.
It's got wrinkles.
It is green.
I knew a little boy who ate too many and threw up.
It isn't perfectly round.
Have you ever seen one roll of the table by mistake?
How he fondled her nipples and they were like rose-colored peas.
If I am served them someday at an important dinner at an embassy, I
will eat them politely and, when no one is looking, I will hide them
under the chèvre.
If I am ever asked, in all seriousness, if I like them, I will say: "I do not."
I was that little boy.
I remember dreaming of carrots once.
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