Feli Elizab Poet Free verse

Rotten Bananas

They wandered through town, 
tan-skinned misfits hungry to get out 
of the cold embrace of the house,
searching for sunlight in all the 
wrong places. They strolled through 
the toughened streets of East 
Dallas, with their mongrel appearance 
and the half kind of luck that only young
boys seem to possess. 

After being chased by a pack of 
wolverines, (they were really only
two scruffy mutts searching for scraps 
to eat), this pack of lost boys wandered
into the corner store, in search of something
to humble their bellies. The owner eyed
them as they flooded the back of his store
with cat calls and the popping of 
stale chewing gum.

They figured they'd try their luck:
"Hey, mister, can we have some of
these bananas?"

And to their surprise:
"You can have all the bananas you want,
boys."

Because these bananas were a dark brown, 
and soft to the touch. Rotten. 
But the boys hooted, grabbing handfuls,
and from then on, amidst their adventures,
stumbled in and picked those bananas up 
with pride. 

Years later, 
my father would try and tell me stories from
his version of a poor and dust-filled
Neverland. But it wasn't until recently that 
I began to understand what he meant 
when he said,

"Those rotten bananas were the best I've ever had."

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Sara Kendrick November 10, 2015 at 10:07 AM Your father had a gifted way of telling his boyhood stories..He and my father would have enjoyed telling each other stories..Sara Feli Elizab November 11, 2015 at 9:54 AM Yes, there are many more I should write down but this is one he often told when I was younger and tells my children about still to this day. He really meant it when he said he loved those rotten bananas :)