Dear Mr. Green Bean

Dear Mr. Green Bean,

-

We get along now, but it wasn't always that way.

With ache I remember our first and worst day.

-

I think Mom dumped you into a pan from a can.

Thank heavens you weren't paired with bacon or ham.

-

Lord knows what else we had for dinner that night.

But you, the required veggie, served quite the fright.

-

I cleared my plate of all but your yuck,

a pile of string mush in a puddle of muck.

-

I refused to eat you, to Mom's weary dread.

"Don't get up 'til they're gone," she shook her finger and said.

-

I didn't roll my eyes and pick up my fork.

Instead I cried, praying for mercy in the morgue.

-

But Mom had something more foul planned.

She scraped out of her chair and grabbed my hand,

-

took me to the mud room, by the laundry and cat scat,

and she set my plate on top of the dusty shoe rack.

-

Ordered to sit there on the floor and eat you,

I bawled as I swallowed green strings and muck juice.

-

But I have to forgive you, Mr. Green Bean.

What happened between us wasn't as obscene

-

as what happened years later, down basement stairs wobbly,

where my sister was sent to eat Mr. Broccoli.

-

Please accept my apology, Mr. Green Bean.

Despite your strings, you don't deserve the latrine.

-

But though I ingest you now with more ease,

at the end of the day, I'd rather eat Mr. Pea.

-

Yours tolerantly,

A grown woman

-

This poem was written in response to the personal challenge issued by Paul Stewart and Donna Renee: "Write a poem (or letter or song or whatever) to your least favorite food."