Salad

We always ate salad when I was a kid,

With lettuce and carrots and cukes

And also tomatoes and olives at times

But today, that would bring some rebukes.

For the lettuce was iceberg, which I never buy,

Though we didn’t have choices back then

Or perhaps that’s the kind that my mother preferred,

So she bought it again and again.

I now buy arugula, sometimes romaine 

Or a mixture of various kinds

Of colorful lettuces, common today,

Just like spinach, as grocery finds.

I still add tomatoes and carrots and, too,

Things like peppers and sugar snap peas,

But the lettuce will never be iceberg because 

My mother’s not here to appease.