Your Only Stateside Visit

 

I keep thinking of your hands

As they held the peach

Like you would a mango

Weighing the solid, heavy pit

In a balanced fashion.

You called the peach of South Carolina

The mango of the Carolinas,

Queen of all fruits

Extolling their tonal virtues,

Their oranges and yellows

And blushes of reds.

 

Your hands

Your left one cradling the peach

Ripe, but not yet bursting with nectar

Your right one gently gripping a knife

Which you guide squarely, precisely

To carve heady flesh away from pit.

 

Like you would with a mango,

You cup the peach pit in both hands

To nibble at each, last dripping morsel,

One trickle of crystalline juice

Falling down your stubby chin

Then resting upon the inner left black rim

Of your folded glasses,

Their soda bottle bottom lenses

Capturing the rays of the sun in projected prisms.

 

Taya-abu, outlet malls have now replaced

the fragrant orchards.

I’ve misplaced your calligraphed verses

That you penned to mark your moment of rapture

With the Carolina peach.

 

By Tabassam Shah, Clarion PA