Watching Juliet, the tomato plant,
grow tall and feathery of leaf,
I’ve also been charting the emergence
of her offspring, consulting Farmer Google—
“How do you know when homegrown
tomatoes are ripe?”—feeling a bit ditsy
because, duh, when they’re red, right?

Which is true, apparently, but also,
I learn, when they go glossy red
and come off easily in the hand.

One does today as I water,
bending to feel up a small cluster.
Woo-hoo! Tomato No. 1!

“Good job, honey!” I say to Juliet,
who, I’m pretty sure, blushes.

I gently hose this first harvest,
debating: to eat now or to save?
I’m tempted to pop it into my mouth,
relish the squish, but I pause to take
a photo, aware that if things continue
this way, I’ll become a bit blasé,
awash in small red ovals.

And though I know he already knows,
I say into the ether, “Tomato, Clifford!”
feeling his smile through the veil.

He grew them decades ago in this yard,
the man who’d pluck a ripe one fresh
off the vine, bring it into the kitchen
and, as I watched, rinse and cut it
into chunks, dropping one from his
dripping hand into my mouth, then
one into his, each of us grinning as
we savored the squish,

full of faith on those hot days
that felt like forever that there would
be more, so many more, for summers
and summers to come.