Jeff Burt

It’d be sacrilege to throw one
cuz the old biddies
that last into fall split,
their skins dried out,
and spill the seeds for next year.
It’d be worship to eat one
with pepper, or olive oil
one up with vinegar.
My mother used to eat one raw
round and spitting juice
like a cowboy
chewing tobacco,
thought it undignified
to eat a tomato in slices
or pyramids
when a potato could be eaten
with a slight wash
and a poking out of their eyes
so they didn’t see you.
Some call a midsize tomato
vine-ripened, but they all
age on the vine,
and a large is beefsteak,
which has nothing to do
with either beef or steak
and is neither flat
like a steak nor as grounded as beef,
since tomatoes are more like amphibians,
vegetable and fruit,
starting as a pollywog
and becoming nothing more than
a stagnant pond of tadpoles.