An Open Letter to Carrot

My little brother ate so much cake of you,
his face turned Carrot. I’ve followed the effects
for years: pairing you with craisins and apple sauce,
hoping to wake drenched in dreamsicle sweat.
I watched my hamster, Fluffy, store you—
cylindrical outlines stretching her cheeks.
You’re an unaccredited extra in the short films:
Soup and Salad. Roasting you,
even in your rainbow varieties delicately emulsified with syrup,
I realize you will never live up to your earthen brother:

Potato.
The ox of your root-vegetable family,
he stars in such feature-length films as
French Fries and Baked Potato.
He defies mortality—flourishing in
the absence of photosynthesis.
We watch its flesh purple fabrics—
both food and fiber artist.
All of this, and I followed you:
Carrot, my sister.

I remember your dedication,
the way you stayed with me in miniaturized
form while all else became indigestible.
You were
okay,
something so rare.
As white rice was thrice baptized,
as pilaf danced in its oil-slick KitchenAid pot—
I discovered this was not the boil of bubbles,
but the infestation of heated mites.
And further, farther away from the present
(simmering) situation,
something crawled inside me which refused to consume anything impure—
a label which encompassed all

except you. I could still skin you and survive;
I scrubbed you
like fresh-born ore
and understood your core was non-manufactured.
Potato didn’t make the cut.
Even exposed, he arrived with indecipherable
reasoning: no, no, no.

Sister, sister, sister.
You were there for me
while I clung to the roof of some thing’s mouth.
You are the vegetable that simply is,
refusing to be much else.

Carrot,
you are most often paired with leaves—
resting in a liminal garden.