However, thanks to advances in medicine the sick are no longer as ill as they used to be, and these days can be given whole fruit baskets so their time convalescing can be spent creating not just vino but also all sorts of juices and smoothies as well.

Who knows, but at this rate it surely won’t be long before the unwell are able to operate micro breweries and small artisan patisseries while recovering too.

Fruit baskets
What the fuck are they all about?
Fruit, obviously
I mean, what are they trying to say?
Who could be pleased to randomly receive
A ton of fruit
Except someone who hasn’t got fruit already?
And who hasn’t got fruit already except
People who don’t eat fruit!
Unless there’s some miraculous miracle of timing here
Coincidence
It just so happens they were about to go shopping
But suddenly a basket arrives
Meaning about turn there’s things to be crossed off the list
Except serendipity should not be the measure
Of shipping fruit about
And you might well indeed say
They’re sent to people when they’re poorly
So implying this mystery illness you speak of
Means they can’t get it for themselves
Which is all very well and good
But what about everything else?
Can they magically manage to get that
While the likes of bananas, oranges and grapes elude them?
No, I say, and no again
So what the Hell is this then
The fruit basket in fact just some cruel jest?
Here you go you’ll be fine if trying to avoid scurvy
But when it comes to protein and the rest
You can slowly starve instead

More poetry of the fruity persuasion:

• Banana
• Apple
• Lime
• Tangerine

To receive notifications of future posts of poetry—be they happy, sarcastic or sad—music history and reviews, the odd bit of this and that plus the occasional stab at promoting my books, please enter an email address below.