arrived, fresh and alert
and looked around.
They’d placed him there,
among the lettuces and leeks,
a thousand acres of fine greens,
oh, he would thrive and stay alive!
Midmorning came, the little man
turned on the water, a fine mist
to freshen up the greens,
it caught him unawares, he fell,
was swept onto the vinyl floor
where fibers of a giant mop preside.
By afternoon he found himself,
in sorry state of health and mood,
inside a drain behind the store.
Surrounded by a thousand acres of
gray soapy scum and pastes of dirty brown.
It was, he mused, the way of things,
and he would now perceive all browns as greens.