John Savoie

Zukes
 
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow.
Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”
 
Zucchini swims its own green sea,
rollicks, rolls, burrows, breaches,
flashes pale barnacled belly
to dazzled day, showing what is
so seldom seen, then splashes down
through lapping leaves, the darker dream,
the breath of life spurling the deep,
as snap beans curl, lithe and giddy
as dolphins dancing on their flukes.
 

  
Note: spurl originates as a Scottish (and Northumbrian) variant of sprawl, though the context here suggests to emit a slow spiral of pearl-bright bubbles.

John Savoie teaches great books at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Best New Poets, and Poetry in Motion.