That stringy stuff on bananas

my lunch a banana

under ripe to my taste

this once hung tuber in bunches,

yellow fibrous fruit

clustered in familied plantain.

you are mother to a well-hated hanger on,

that thin, stringy extra, neither skin nor flesh,

lurker, hiding on your surface in plain sight,

delayer of my meal as I peal,

tainting tweezer fingers with his white residue.

he is unclean

born of banana but now discarded

and I ponder -

is he saved in the trash

or broken blessed

once I notice his scab on her skin,

layer to shed unfavorite fetter,

for the rest I consume.

no science in answer

no religion forbidding

yet universal abhorrence for him

like plague on plague

surrounding his tepid thread.

I won't eat him,

his back of bus,

other fountain

thick-lip objection.

And I don't know why.