Homegrown Tomatoes, poem by Jenifer Lee Wallace

First thing you notice is the color.
“Red” doesn’t do it justice.
This shade only exists in Technicolor.
They haunt my dreams in late February,
when a foot of snow cov­ers the ground.
Not ruby, not scar­let, not cardinal.
“Puls­ing red” because they beat
like hearts on my plate.

There are four left.
Last har­vest of the season
sit­ting on the counter.
I won’t have the chance to taste them again
til next summer.
The knife sings, ecsta­t­ic as it releases
nec­tar and haloed seeds.

First bite: rapture.
Sum­mer sun and rich soil
cre­at­ed vine-ripened ecstasy.
Sweet­ness of refresh­ing rains,

respite from 100 heat,
adds a grace note to the aria
burst­ing as I chew.
Far too soon, all that’s left
is juice.
I raise the plate to my mouth and drink.

Jenifer Lee Wal­lace is a writer and poet from St. Louis, with fam­i­ly roots in the farm­land of south­east Missouri.