In my youth
I lived long hours before the dark
when the summer had no pause
and the orchard was at the end of the road.
Like walking into a furnace
the air was thick with the scent of sweet
heavy with the weight of July.
There, the fig trees waited in the heat,
the branches dipping low.
Beneath the unblinking sun
the skin tore open, the figs in my palm
of the crimson and amber flesh.
Staining my fingers until the dusk.
Now the seasons turn to a rush
and the orchard belongs to a different time.
Yet, when the night grows long and still,
the ghost of summers return…
to the single flaming fig.
