Today’s challenge asks you to write a poem that contains the name of a specific variety of edible plant…. 

“This karela* is the sweetest,” you used to say

Plunging your knife and fork and cutting into the flesh

I never could figure how you enjoyed the bitterness 

That made us all gag and make funny faces.

That was then and I was young, the bitterness of life

Yet to plunge it’s knife and fork into me, cutting into edges

Now, whenever I see the small rounds of  the karela

I want to have it, just so you can taste that sweetness again.  

For you live on through me, tasting the salt and sweet

Looking at the world through my eyes, as I plunge 

My knife and fork into life, sometimes coming up 

With morsels and sometimes the whole karela. 

*Karela: bitter gourd.