a careful patch with squash and beans, some
other stuff we grew, growing up, a handful
of blueberry shrubs nurtured against a wall
for those days we piled into late summer
off on the two-lane blacktop, filling pails
in the low growth under the power lines,
paying ourselves as we went, flagging our
honest tongues at each other with a smile –
not Eden, not really, but still in the fall
dropping by for a visit you know she’ll
fix a bag for you, tendergreen and fresh
goldrush, a tomato so warm on the vine
you could rub it like a lantern, bite down
and find August, translated into juice.
Poem by George Perreault
George Perreault has published in journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. His latest book, Bodark County, is a collection of poems in the voices of characters living on the Llano Estacado in West Texas.