STRAWBERRY TIME

 

I bought strawberries last June,

removed the stalks

and danced them in a colander

then that familiar smell

of when we worked the fields,

a radio providing sound

the hands and knees

that scraped the ground

and almost all of us on benefits

so we'd run and hide when

government spies arrived

and by five, clothes were stiff

with all that mud and fruit

our fingers cracked and stinging,

the punnets weighed in,

brass counters for banknotes.

We'd laugh at suburban families

who came to pick their own:

our daily grind a novelty?

then take the towpath to the pub.

 

The Cannon's Mouth. Issue 75. March 2020. Editor Greg Cox.