I took you for granted

with no thoughts other than you would be there

every morning.

I loved you best 

when you had just turned

fluorescent green fading to yellow

still firm to my touch

fresh sweetness in my mouth.

Tossed out the ends

I discarded you if there were brown spots.

Felt the skin for signs of mush.

Sliced, you made cereal bearable.

Peeled, ate whole were an afternoon delight,

a sweet treat instead of candy.

Sometimes you would float in Jell-O,

in my mother’s version you sank to the bottom.

You were the star of our family celebrations,

pressed together with whipped cream and cookies

leftovers eaten for breakfast.

In Goa I drank you in milkshakes,

the sun rising or setting against the Indian ocean,

blended with ice I shouldn’t have touched.

Those days are coming to an end.

It’s only a matter of time 

until a fungus strikes.

It’s not safe to be a monoculture,

you have died out once before,

so have dinosaurs but you have returned.

You might not be so lucky this time,

a rare fruit marketed as a grocery staple.

A recipe for disaster.

Fusarium wilt is what got Gros Michael.

Cavendish followed, 

shipped green, we can’t get enough of them,

their future is uncertain.

How did it happen?

That we ended up eating tropical fruits

from places far away

on the labor of men who become sterile

and plants that cannot re produce?

Can we grieve for bananas or only people and pets?

Can we cry for the lives lost harvesting? 

For the land ruined

for the way we are destroying our world.