Food…

The Banana Who Did

Now look what I found

at the end of the summer,

in back of the fruit bowl,

grown steadily glummer.

Too bad it lacked feet,

for with feet it could run

and not be a thing

I would eat just for fun.

Perhaps, had I bitten,

it would never have died

of such terrible fright—

but it chose, then, to hide

from the spoon and the bowl,

from the cereal too,

from a breakfast at noon.

When it heard me come through,

it imagined me chew,

and it thought with a grin,

She will never find me—

which was technically true.

For weeks it lay still

and it made not a peep,

so afraid that my fingers

would peel it asleep.

It refused to be breakfast.

It refused to be pie.

It refused so completely

it forgot not to die.

By August it had

a most terrible plan:

"I'll be so un-banana

she won't know what I am."

So it sucked in its belly

and went leathery, thin,

and folded its yellow

and kept the sweet in.

And there it remained,

the brave little fool,

still hiding from hunger

behind the fruit bowl—

until . . .

I found what was left

of its devious scheme:

a banana so frightened

it had softened to cream.

Marni Fraser

09.2026

The Banana Who Did | 2026