October 2, 2012

the end of strawberry season

They are flagging this morning on my French toast, though I should know better
than to ask for their full attention at the beginning of October. My hopes
are high - a bubbly optimism I have managed to keep aloft all these years.
Maybe love is always tinged with stubbornness,
just as the plump sweet of strawberry rings with a sly note of tart,
because I can’t help but turn to the menu with the same hunger that greets me
in the thick of summer. I am a believer, through and through. Even today,
these lackluster slices conjure a memory of a farm field in New Hampshire,
and I am 13 and 14 and 15, bending low to the leaves, swatting my calves
free of mosquitos, reaching in to take as much as I want, filling myself with fruit.