In June I watch them carefully
each day. Strolling through the garden,
I know where the best ones are.
They lie in sun like a day at the beach,
wrapped in their skimpy, ruffled leaves.
They beckon in their indifference. Carefully,
I check out their ripening
blossom ends.
Anticipation grows in me like a hunger,
but you can’t pick them too early, you know,
or they are no better than the slick, hard,
bland ones for sale down at Kroger.
Bundled up and wrapped in plastic.
Anything you want for a buck
eighty nine.
– – –
After Labor Day, they hang on the vines
like old women at a tavern, a little too red,
a little too loud, sagging, sad,
slowly destroyed by sun and time
and aphids. They prop themselves up
when I come out to prune the vines. They
call to me, “Hey, baby. Come on over here
and sit a spell. Talk to me,” but I’ve had my fill.
I could can you, I say, put you in a jar and
set you on a dark shelf. In January, maybe, I’ll
want you. Maybe on pasta, maybe in stew
with okra and onions. I start to clip them off
at the vine and toss them in the bucket,
but something catches my eye.
Over in a corner of the garden, a chili pepper
hides beneath a cascade of heavy green leaves.
A late bloomer, it is only now beginning to
blush. It’s young and firm and slender and shy,
and I am an old geezer on the prowl.
June 1997
