Cherry tomatoes
ripened and red
sprouting from
a store-bought ***;
sweetened soil
with water and sun
and leaves as green
as the growing grass.

Routine enacts certainty
when maintained concrete.

I forgot
to keep with it;
the scarlet skin
wilted dull and brown
and the leaves wrinkled
under a midwestern freeze,
a jar of life
left to die.

Two cherry tomatoes
survived the exodus
and remain alive
in the wasteland of death;
striving against the odds
to pull each nutrient
sickling through the soil,
sinking beneath the surface.

The most difficult lives,
the ones worth living.