The Blight

What’s there to say? We didn’t care for him much,

and you can’t exactly commiserate

with someone you don’t just not love

but almost (admit it) hate.

So the news just hung over us

like the dud summer weather we’d had—

rain since June, the lawn sodden,

garden a bog, all slugs, late blight so bad

our sickened Beefsteak vines, our Sweet One Hundreds,

San Marzanos, the lot,

yellowed half black before the fruit had set,

which, when it did, began to bloat and rot

before it ripened—but like I say

(and not to speak ill of the dead)

we just didn’t care for him,

which is probably all there is to be said.