One Day in April

One day in April

I came to know strawberries.

Sorting the dark broad

leaf of the true

from the wrinkled

leggy false,

following any yellow

flower back to its spreading

root reaching fingers under

just so and

pulling out the many-

tentacled usurper.

More room for the true,

growing apace

white flowers budding

into fruit, new leaves

uncurling in their time,

the root core

centered, deep.

© Sheila Dinn, 1997