Prose Poem: Not in MY neighborhood!

 

We've got to do something about these

displaced vegetables!

Just the other day I was at home,

minding my own business,

when a frowzy summer squash

knocked on my door, leered at me,

said it had been planted in a nearby

garden,

and now wanted a handout --

or a bottle of cooking sherry

if I had any.

I slammed the door in its face.

Then took some organic kratom.

But that wasn't the end of things.

All week there have been ugly

brawls behind the mulch pile

in the alley.

Blemished tomatoes against wilted celery.

Radishes gone to seed, acting tough,

 with a 

bad attitude.

And there are carrots,

 out of their minds

on Miracle-Gro,

lying in the gutters and

making rude comments to

passersby.

The neighborhood, my neighborhood,

where I raised two boys and a girl,

and kept nasturtiums,

has become Skid Row.

I went to see the Mayor,

for all the good it did me.

She said that I needed to open

my heart to the friendless kale

and despised rutabaga.

"How many zucchini have interrupted

your dinner lately?" I asked her bluntly.

She didn't have an answer for that!

I talked it over with some of my neighbors,

wondering if we should take the city to court.

But we'd probably get that Mr. Potato Head judge,

who bleeds beet juice. A waste of time

and money.

Well, if the city won't do anything,

there's more than one way to peel

an onion.

I got me a whole warren of rabbits now.

And if they happen to get out of their hutches

 one night,

and rampage through the neighborhood,

and snack on a few derelict cabbages

or pole beans,

well, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

After all:

Who's gonna blame a cute little bunny?