The Banana
by Kate Stoltzfus
I take the woman’s order: what,
she asks, pointing to the menu,
is a banana. I try to explain.
What is yellow. What is sweet.
What is color. What is potassium.
What is turning brown. A fruit,
by any other name. I try to explain.
In the morning, in the nursing home
dining room, we repeat. What is a banana,
she asks. Bites hard. I think, she says, I’ve tried
this before. Pats my hand. I’m sixteen.
Going home, windows down, I try
to memorize, hard, the road’s sway, the tawny
light swilling across dashboard, the purr
of cricket fields, the wheat swelling
again toward August, everything.
she asks, pointing to the menu,
is a banana. I try to explain.
What is yellow. What is sweet.
What is color. What is potassium.
What is turning brown. A fruit,
by any other name. I try to explain.
In the morning, in the nursing home
dining room, we repeat. What is a banana,
she asks. Bites hard. I think, she says, I’ve tried
this before. Pats my hand. I’m sixteen.
Going home, windows down, I try
to memorize, hard, the road’s sway, the tawny
light swilling across dashboard, the purr
of cricket fields, the wheat swelling
again toward August, everything.
Kate Stoltzfus (she/her) is a poetry candidate at the University of Arkansas’ MFA program in creative writing and translation and the 2024-25 assistant managing editor for The Arkansas International. A former journalist and editor specializing in K-12 education, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Ninth Letter, Salt Hill, Beloit Poetry Journal, The Journal, and elsewhere.