Pickles

I don’t need to say what they look like, do I?

Surely everyone who’s bitten the end

off a stiff little gherkin

has had the same unwholesome thought.

The jars are nearly always short and stout

though pickles are not caloric.

With their broken dill and sunken detritus

the jars remind me of long-neglected aquariums;

and in fact we have some very old pickles

inhabiting a swampy corner of the fridge, passed over

time and again by a doubtful hand.

The pickles may be growing legs by now

and croaking all night

in the cold spring of the icebox, silenced

by the slightest movement of the door.