Fresh Peaches
by Clarence Wolfshohl


Mason, Texas

We’d pick the fresh peaches
for our granola and milk.
Inside they were warm with life
but their skins were cool, the sun
just a red promise in the dawn
before the heat of early summer
filled the orchard.

You’d slice them into halves,
then quarters, then slivers of eighths,
and they’d nest in their bowls
bedded on cereal and half submerged
under milk. Sometimes we’d stroll
among the dozen trees to scan
tomorrow’s breakfast with today’s
in our hands, our spoons
pointing to fat fruit ready to harvest.

I am here now at the same cool hour
of June. The trees are gone and replaced
with lawn, but I imagine the new peach
sweetness filling the air as I let
your ashes sift free of the jar,
float a moment on slow currents,
and then swing down onto the grass,
between the blades, some gathering
to dewdrops, most powdering the soil
that nourished our early summer
fresh peaches a lifetime ago.






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