The Garden State—Dawn Morrow

"Maybe we all have a quota in life—only this much to bring forth."

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Dawn Morrow writes poems for people who think they don't like poetry. Although she holds an MFA from Seattle Pacific University, an MBA from UNC-Chapel Hill, and a BS in Engineering from the University of Iowa, she’s a Jersey Girl at heart. Her poetry has appeared in the Molehill, vol. 5, published by Rabbit Room Press and SLAB Literary Magazine. She recently released her first volume of poetry, The Habit of Hope.

The Garden State

In the garden state, farm stands grow
between rows of corn.
We only went to Mazza’s place,
where my father spent winter Sunday afternoons
in the greenhouses fiddling with the heaters.

Mazza paid my dad in seedlings—
future tomatoes and peppers.
My mom held them close to her face,
eyes closed, nose buried in their leaves,
breathing in their hope.

I always feel vaguely guilty
when I buy tomatoes from the grocery store,
shipped in from who-knows-where,
picked by strangers who struggle to make a living
by moving from farm to farm.

I should be able to coax the red fruit from the soil
and eat the tomatoes hot from the vine.
I did it once, a bumper crop, from May to November—
there were so many tomatoes
I begged my friends to take them away.

Since then I haven’t grown one thing.
The plants, if they grow at all, are fruitless.
Maybe we all have a quota in life—
only this much to bring forth.
I spent mine all in one place.

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Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash