Peaches
are best eaten
fresh from the bushel, or the peck,
at Life temperature,
warmed by the summer sun
beating down on the canted roof
of the hand-built, roadside farm stand.
A ripe peach will throb a little,
blush and demure in the cup of your hand,
cuddle to your grip
waiting for your hungry bite.
The skin stretches, yearns, gives,
bared marigold flesh is tender under your teeth
nectar mingles on your tongue with peach fuzz
taste and texture
always too much at first
and the sweet juice dribbles down your chin.
Inside there are beauty marks:
a spontaneous seam of lipstick red,
a patch of pink around the navel,
the lie of the gnarled whorls on the sandalwood pit.
Suck it dry,
peaches were designed to be used all up,
and throw that pit in fertile ground
so there may grow another.
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