I knew about zucchini envy long before Farmer Freud. I was barely
out of blossom when I began noticing that every okra in the garden
longed to be a squash like me. And what a magnificent blossom!
Bold, orange, shaped like a trumpet to herald forth my grand entry.
Stage left. Sleek skin with manly ridges, rough stem—my outsie
navel. What farmer’s daughter doesn’t dream of grabbing hold?
The way a knee-high to a grasshopper hefts me, I know he dreams
of unzipping my like at a urinal someday, no longer looking up at
the tiles, cut down to size by an alpha male peeking his direction.
Joe Smith poet
Honoria Starbuck illustrations
