Blueberries Are As Blue As Cherries Are Red Poem by Sarah Mkhonza

I want to tell you what I heard in the grocery
Store of a big department store. I went to the
Fruit section and took raspberries off the shelf.
The packet opened and spilled on the floor. I told
An employee that I had made a mess.

I went back to the shelf and blueberries got
My attention. I picked them up and cherries
Looked at me and told me to take them as well
For what was I going to do when I make the pie
For each fruit has its own power.

When I asked what that power was I was shocked.
The cherries answered first with a sly move
Wiggling themselves into my basket and not
Minding that I had only a couple of dollars.
They said you will not regret for you cannot
Leave here and go into a world with regret
For one pie cannot satisfy your tastes, for
Blueberries are as blue as cherries are red.

I walked away and wished for a place where
The power of choice did not lie with the buyer,
A place where I could ask someone to hand me
Stuff for there I called the shops. My world
Has been taken over by the items themselves
In this world where the goods call the shots.

I rest unsure what I will do now that I shop
On the screen in front of me and every little
Item wiggles itself telling me that buying is
Not for those whose choices are not made prior
To coming into their world. You click this and
Click that and this click-click-world enters
Your purse and wrenches the budget and tears
Your world into tatters of debts. Only the
Devil goes away laughing telling you, I told
You so, temptation is the god that runs your
Life since you hated the word discipline the
Day you were born and threw it out of your life
as a teenager.

I sit on my kitchen table with two pies looking
At me telling the story of the shopper of today.
I face the two with a mouth that waters for both,
But a budget that yells at my purse and tells it
To shut the card section and throw away the keys
For if this game is played like this someone
Will have a heart attack for they will have not
Even a sum to buy a piece of gum to chew for the
Sake of these two that know how to argue even with
The devil himself saying blueberries are as blue
And as tasty as Cherries are as red, especially
on a piece of crust bought at the store.