August Peaches, Healdsburg

Not that peach pie I baked for you,
not the shameless sweet fruit in my mouth
but the weight of the warm slice
on the plate I placed before you,
and how long that summer day in the vineyard

when we stayed at the house
of my oldest friend, we the caretakers,
walking the dogs, watering the roses,
how we laze on the porch watching the cypress
bend in the wind at the bottom of the lane.

Not our house, not our life, but just this moment
when the tomatoes were ripe as those Dry Creek peaches
and the basil I pinched from the pot on the porch
so pungent my fingers were fragrant long after we were gone.