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This poem is taken from PN Review 122, Volume 24 Number 6, July - August 1998.

Asparagus Tamar Yoseloff

It was worth it just for the picking,
the clean sharp snap from the root.
No breeze, no sound, except the hum of cicadas
growing to a crescendo at the edge of the field.
By July I knew the first short stalks would soon appear;
it thrived in the August heat.

Someone before me had taken the trouble
to plant those neat rows. I hated to see it go to waste;
...


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