Peach

"The best way to know God is to love many things." Van Gogh

Cut it into halves along this seam, he tells me, insisting the freestone peach into my hand, and the flesh will break clean from the pit.

I did.

It does.

I brushed the skin with my thumb and it was soft the way leaves are soft when they begin to yellow.

I was alone, so I brushed the skin with my cheek and smiled that it felt rougher there, like a worked palm.

I bit into the first quarter and in my mouth the skin had a new feel, like a delicate piece of canvas meant to be worn close to the body.

Each bite was soft, perfect, unusual. Sugared gold, honey yellow, autumn red near the core. Sweet with no addition, no rot, no wood clinging from the pit. Part of the pleasure was the novelty of eating a thing that had a texture on the outside like it shouldn’t be eaten, so I didn’t remove the skin.

The final three quarters are wrapped in the kitchen so I may live the moment again tomorrow at breakfast, but I know I won’t. I can’t. The sky then won’t be dark and clear outside my window, the air won’t be cool and filled with the sound of crickets, and the peace that comes from being only a few hours removed from the end of the work week will have passed.

But I enjoyed that standalone quarter tonight more than almost any other part of my week, of my month, and so I’m glad for it. And smiling.