Road-side Farm Stand
By Roger Sippl
Triple ripe peaches,
not so ripe to be mushy,
but even chilled
the firm flesh gushes
the sugar built from recent days
of moist sunshine.
Can we just have this —
just take the goodness,
and ignore the quick onset arthritis
of a dear friend, or
the just dead husband of another?
In Bridgehampton can’t we just be
on vacation and not in the real?
Maybe not.
Roger Sippl studied creative writing at the University of California at Irvine, the University of California at Berkeley (under Thom Gunn) and at Stanford Continuing Studies. He has published poetry in the Ocean State Review, Open Thought Vortex, Her Heart Poetry, Bacopa Literary Review, The Write Launch, Alternating Currents, Sediments Literary-Arts Journal, Smeuse Poetry, Poker Brat, Snapdragon, Wising Up Press, Medussa’s Laugh and two medical journals, JAMA Oncology and CHEST.
He has written his first novel, which is in revision. While a student at UC Berkeley in the 1970’s, Sippl was diagnosed with Stage IIIB Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, which was treated aggressively with surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy, allowing him to live relapse-free to this day.
