Monday, August 9, 2010

Cherry Tomatoes

Photograph Gay Bumgarner Images titled "Burpee big boy and the cherries"

Cherry Tomatoes
by Anne Higgins

Suddenly it is August again, so hot,
breathless heat.
I sit on the ground
in the garden of Carmel,
picking ripe cherry tomatoes
and eating them.
They are so ripe that the skin is split,
so warm and sweet
from the attentions of the sun,
the juice bursts in my mouth,
an ecstatic taste,
and I feel that I am in the mouth of summer,
sloshing in the saliva of August.
Hummingbirds halo me there,
in the great green silence,
and my own bursting heart
splits me with life. 

"Cherry Tomatoes" by Anne Higgins, from At the Year's Elbow. © Mellen Poetry Press, 2000. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

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