Summer Rundown 5: Homer Fike's Yellow Oxheart

Yellow.

Yellow like a ripe pineapple
like the first day of vacation
like the feeling of a hot car
when your skin
rises in goosebumps
in the sun.

That is Homer Fike's yellow.

The few fruit,
like living
pumping
beating oxhearts
in my hands,
each weighed over a
pound.

Nearly seedless
tropical-acidic-sugar,
these were tomatoes
to slurp down alone
or to simmer gently
with ground coriander,
red pepper,
and garlic
to make
a drinkable sunshine.



This was not my
year for tomatoes
yet your plant
still gave me six.

I'm betting next year
will be a
tomato year,
one that will leave
me swimming in
Homer Fike's good
Yellowness.