Lettuce, Go To War

Stop wilting beneath the unjust rage of the tomatoes.

Don’t act like you can’t hear the murmuring of the tubers

Or feel the gawking of the squash.

It’s not the Onions who are crying, Lettuce.

And the Carrots are laughing at you.

 

How much longer will you let the Peppers accuse you of being flavorless?

The Cucumbers might not be jeering if you’d said something

When the Corn called your soil unfertile.
Do they really need a reminder that without you salad would lose its soul?

That without you it’d need a new name entirely?

Would be just vegetables and dip?

 

It’s your humility, Lettuce, that’s allowed all sorts of lies to be planted,

Including that viscous one about you and the Strawberries. . .

The Green Giant didn’t die for your sins for this to happen.

Lettuce, go to war.

Raise your leaves high

And strike the Tomatoes

Down from their poisonous pedestals,

Ravish the Radishes and

Spread your leaves above the Peppers and

Block their sunlight!

Go to war, Lettuce, go to war.

Go to war for every Brussel Sprout

Harvested in the prime of his youth,

For every cloudy day,

Fight because half your offspring

Will die dishonorably death at the

Hands of 1,000 Islands

While the heart of the Artichoke is basked

In the debauched glaze of extra virgin olive oil

He does not deserve.

Lettuce, go to war.

For every leaf left to wilt in the back of a

Forgotten undergraduate mini fridge,

For every child who takes you off his

Hamburger with a sneering Oooo, gross face,

For every midnight snack that didn’t include you,

For every rabbit that invaded every garden,

Since the history of rabbits, and garden and lettuce;

Go to war, go to war, go to war.
Lettuce, go to war.