Easy As Pie Poem by Ronald Shields

No one eats the cherry pie.
Why?
It is beautiful
there on the counter
in its white
ceramic pie pan,
all crimson and purple
encased in a glistening
brown crust.

People used to stand in
line for a piece of the pie,
any flavor, any color,
even mock apple pie.

Then they stood in
line for cheese,
encased in white plastic
with the word
‘CHEESE'
stenciled in black ink.

The cheese was a
kind of yellow,
unnatural for food,
manufactured,
mass produced the way
cars have been since
1910.

What do folks stand in
line for these days?
WIC Debit cards
Lottery tickets
Medical care
Security checkpoints
Jobs, always the jobs.

I don't need to stand in
those kinds of lines
-hit the birth lottery,
my parents did it
so I don't have to.
My kids will only
stand in express lines.

Sometimes I get in
a line just to find out
what's going on;
though nobody
understands why
the cherry pie
is so unpopular.