Sandra Osborne - Strawberries

Strawberries.
I have eaten strawberries all my life.
But I never tasted one until last month.

I have eaten Safeway strawberries,
And Food Lion strawberries.
Fruit stand strawberries,
And roadside strawberries.

I have eaten strawberry jam,
And strawberry jelly.
Strawberry sweets,
And strawberry pie.

But I never tasted one until last month.
You see, sometime last year,
Some friends of mine,
Planted a strawberry patch.

Then, this spring, they asked us to pick some.
It was then that I ate a freshly grown,
Picked off the vine,
Oh my God is that good,
Strawberry.

A juicy red plump,
Shiny as a Popsicle,
Sweet as cherry pie,
Flavored like no strawberry I had ever eaten,
Strawberry.

And while I would really like to know
Just what those puny little red sad fruits
That I have been eating all these years, were,
I do know one thing:
They weren’t strawberries!

Sandra Osborne

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/strawberries/