Frankie McMillan

The Biography of Mr Carrot
Daucus carota

Our family was large; when we met
we embraced six hundred times

for a long while I was inseparable
from my cousin

but such is life
you learn to let go of things

not meant for you
Marcel Proust wrote to Celine

ten times in the hope
of boeufs - carottes

and while I’m dropping names
there’s Vincenzo Campi’s

painting where I lie
in the arms of my brothers

but not my cousin
Daucus pastinaca

remind him, if you see him
of the market carts pushed

through the streets of Paris
the cry of traders

the small history of our grandmothers