Still Life with Carrots

When I discover a carrot, like this one,
grown old, forgotten on a shelf
behind bottles of oil, herbs and spices,
all those nouveaux arrivéés, I feel myself

drawn to it. It’s as if all
the wonderful meals my life has been made of,
the exotic tables at which I have sat
had never existed, as if during love-

making a former lover had come
into my mind, or a neighbour, long dead
had knocked on the door and let himself in,
as of old, trailing the earth from his grave.

The politeness accosts me. Almost as frail
as my father in his hospital bed
those last long months, this carrot seems
to have something to tell me. The fact is, in the end,

the formidable weakens, the once proud
become stooped and sad. The lost
no longer recognise themselves.
And so it goes for all our vegetable loves:

the pea dries up; the tomato weeps
and weeps an ectoplasmic mess;
lettuce browns like an old book;
potatoes send up flares of distress;

but carrots just age there, waiting to be found,
as the plates on the table, like the planets, go around.