Alphabet Bean Soup

By Nancy J. Barbara
green beans
in a snap
shimmy
out
of their white blossom
umbrellas
and
dangle
like earrings
from their stems.
Some beans –
long,
slender
shapely
like a woman’s
leg
in
silk stockings
with a seam
running
up the back.
Others –
impatient for pickers
drop
silently
from their straphangers
spelling
S O S
in the sandy soil.
grammar police gather
errant
commas
question marks
lower-case e’s
half-fast c’s
and toss them into
boiling chicken stock
with potatoes –
homegrown alphabet soup.