In early June

comes a five-day period

when every peach on the tree

arrives at a perfect

skin-splitting ripeness

and you race the birds

rushing into the back yard

with a blue plastic bucket.

You drag the six-foot

aluminum ladder

from the garage

climb tenuously

and reach for each round

fuzzy piece of fruit

with the fleshy pads

of your fingertips,

sucking in heady

peach scent

imagining cobbler

and jam.

 

The fruit is ready.

It drops into your palm.

You feel an urgency

to grasp what comes

quickly and briefly.

 

You set soft peaches

in shoe boxes

and brown grocery sacks,

take them to your next-door neighbor

and the elderly man

across the street,

to your mother, your brother

and the cousin who goes with you

to church on Sunday.