Strawberries

Strawberries. I have eaten strawberries all my life. But I never tasted one until last month. I have eaten Safeway strawberries, And Food Lion strawberries. Fruit stand strawberries, And roadside strawberries. I have eaten strawberry jam, And strawberry jelly. Strawberry sweets, And strawberry pie. But I never tasted one until last month. You see, sometime last year, Some friends of mine, Planted a strawberry patch. Then, this spring, they asked us to pick some. It was then that I ate a freshly grown, Picked off the vine, Oh my God is that good, Strawberry. A juicy red plump, Shiny as a Popsicle, Sweet as cherry pie, Flavored like no strawberry I had ever eaten, Strawberry. And while I would really like to know Just what those puny little red sad fruits That I have been eating all these years, were, I do know one thing: They weren’t strawberries!