Looking for Queen Janet

Claire ate only three spoons
of cornflakes for breakfast.
On the way to school
her shoes filled with snow.
By eleven in the morning,
math had been going on for two hours.
Lunch was Claire's least favorite --
baloney sandwiches.
At playtime Claire was the only girl
not able to do a cartwheel.
Once again the bus was late.
Claire needs a visit to the Bunny Planet.

Far beyond the moon and stars, 
Twenty light years south of Mars,
Spins the gentle Bunny Planet
And the Bunny Queen is Janet


Janet says to Claire, "Come in. 
Here's the day that should have been."


I hear my mother calling when the summer wind blows,
"Go out in the garden in your old, old clothes.
Pick me some runner beans and sugar snap peas.
Find a ripe tomato and bring it to me, please."


A ruby red tomato is hanging on the vine.
If my mother didn't want it, the tomato would be mine.
It smells of rain and steamy earth and hot, June sun.
In the whole tomato garden it's the only ripe one.
I close my eyes and breathe in its fat, red smell.
I wish that I could eat it now and never, never tell.


But I save it for my mother without another look.


I wash the beans and shell the peas
and watch my mother cook.


I hear my mother calling when the summer winds blow,
"I've made you First Tomato soup because I love you so."


Claire's big warm bus comes at last.
Out her window Claire sees the Bunny Planet
near the evening star in the snowy sky.
"It was there all along!" says Claire.


-- First Tomato by Rosemary Wells