Two Poems

By Carolyn & Kant Muchhala

O my Tomato!

Shall I compare you to the squash of summer?                     

You are rounder, more colorful, and tasty.                            

Slugs leave shiny threads of slime—a bummer—                 

On pale misshapen impotent squash while pasty                  

Blossoms shrivel on their tips in midday sun,                       

And stick disgustingly to yellowing flesh.                            

Their unkempt vines creep nightly through the lawn

And over the deck, creating a tangled mess.             

But your red beauty only serves to heighten             

My lust, Tomato, temptress of my tongue.                            

Since summer squash grows pallid as you brighten,            

It’s to your luscious bod’ my song is sung.               

            Store-bought tomatoes, reddened off the vine,         

Can never match sun-ripened globes like thine.        

             Published in Your Daily Poem, July 19, 2017


Our Daily Bread

I’m studying grainy NASA photos of Pluto, that dead dwarf,

with its ice mountains, its frozen nitrogen seas—such grey gloom—

before clicking on

living color headshots of that infamous couple,

the San Bernardino killers. They’re side by side

but they sure look lonesome staring into the surveillance camera.

Scrolling down from there I find

that Justin might be growing up and taking his Beliebers with him.

Also, Angelina and her lucky brood are traveling in Africa, sans Brad,

who has apparently been forgiven by Jennifer

while further on I read

Muslims must do more to stop Radical Islamist Terrorists.

On the other hand non-Muslim mass murderers are deranged.

Who can stop them? If their brains say kill—even schoolkids—they will.

I keep scrolling and

discover the dog best suited to my personality.

Oh, and did you know cats are terrified of cucumbers?

published in Bramble, Spring 2019