A harvest moon rising, pouring gold
over shivering fields of corn silk,
a rounded cheek soft and warm,
blushing pink when his words infer.
It is the shadow sweep of lashes,
the tender beginning of a bruise.
It is small fingers stroking a rose
velvet party dress, impatient to leave, and
sticky juice spurting a picnic by the shore.
A peach is a love poem by another name,
a hard pocked pit, the sharp-edged seed
of knowing in the viscera
that which we cannot yet admit.
It is an orchard of wanting, trees ripe
with longing and then
a fleeting garden of fallen petals
imposing a mist of whispered colour
on trampled grass beneath.
It is the sweetness of a coveted season
melting into the prickled vines of fall, and
an unswerving belief
your life can be anything at all
except lacking.
- What is a Peach? - 14th July 2021