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