Victoria Broome 2013

Come at the end of summer,
no one really knows their story,
although peaches did originate from China.
In her childhood my mother’s mother
stewed them until dark, dark crimson
they bled into the white tapioca on the plate.

I have come to love them in their furry,
mauve grey skin and watch them as they ripen
on the tree. They grow in France;
or did several centuries ago, the Peche de Vigne,
grown among the grapes to indicate disease.
That is a preferable name; the vineyard peach.

The fruit of warning, heart red flesh,
the sweetness beneath the difficult skin,
the one worth waiting for, the one that comes
as daylight saving ends, the one that comes
around the same time as the resurrection.
The one, like a shadow in the garden,
that Mary calls to and finds; it is her son.