Summer at a Michigan Farm Stand

Nan Lundeen

Two goats and a calf—
the butterscotch calf
legs folded lolling,
casting a wary brown eye
at two black goats butting heads
penned in sun
beside rainbow-bright zinnias in line
like chorus girls
forever young.

On the wide-open shed’s porch
moms who drove out from town
buy tiny cups of pellets
for their tots to feed the calf, the goats,
small pink palms
reach through the wire fence
to small pink tongues. 

Grandmas sniff
musky-scented cantaloupe
piled in mounds near their sisters—
elongated butternut squash
tan and yearning to leap
into an El Greco mural.

Inside, weathered farm women
with smile-creased faces—they are everyone’s
mother, sister—sell pristine green
beans, crisp and curling over
edges of pale blue boxes;

tomatoes plump perfect,
lofty red bell peppers
kings of the veggie omelet;

wood-slatted bins
of green-cloaked
cobs of corn spill
their brown hair
all over each other
like girls at a slumber party.

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Nan Lundeen
Nan Lundeen’s poetry has appeared in Atlanta Review, Connecticut River Review, Steam Ticket, Illuminations, Yemassee, The Petigru Review, and others. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her nonfiction and poetry books have won three national indie book finalist awards. The retired award-winning journalist lives in southwestern Michigan and holds an M.A. from Western Michigan University. Visit her at nanlundeen.com.