Green Pea Crisps

L. RENée

2/18/2018



Beneath the buzzing white light
of Aisle 7’s halogen froth
perhaps I forgot what they were
and were not: That real vegetables
never nestle next to poly-
lactic acid or any so-called
biodegradable plastic purposed
to contain their emerald bounty
in snack-sized convenience.

The packaging’s rolling hills
lined with endless green sprouts
sold me a most delicious lie:
That I could eat copious peas and rice
pulverized to a salty dust, shaped
into a believable log, which, free
from gluten and guilt, low in fat
with an air-baked crunch, would render
my tastebuds dumb and wanting.

GREEN BEANS

L. RENÉE

6/18/1991



Piled high and worming their way
out of cardboard punnets,
bright green bodies, skin-smooth
to the touch, my tiny brown hands
sorted, then washed their dirt-speckled
lengths, while you snapped, then trimmed
each Kentucky Wonder’s tips, sent them
plummeting to the peeling kitchen
linoleum like your belief in men.

I couldn’t have known then,
as the black pot stewed fatback
and pepper, as it made the salty promise
to fill our empty bodies, when you said we,
Mama and Only Child Daughter,
were two peas tending the same pod,
that your favorite green beans had
a habit of climbing, a dull nag
to reach for more sun.

L. RENÉE is a poet from Columbus, Ohio. She is a third-year MFA candidate at Indiana University, where she has served as Nonfiction Editor of the Indiana Review and Associate Director of the Indiana University Writers’ Conference. Her work has been supported by Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, and Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference. Her poems have been published or are forthcoming in Tin House Online​, Poet Lore, the minnesota review, Southern Humanities Review, Appalachian Heritage and New Limestone Review. She believes in Black joy and shares some of it on Instagram @lreneepoems.

Originally published August 2020 in poiesis 1.2: syzygy by w the trees.