Portside

Peaches

The longest day of the year passes happily, students sitting
on slate steps at the library, a very tall woman wearing very

short denim shorts walks past, a peach in one hand, her cell
in the other, transfixed by what likely will not change her life.

Everything seems possible on this summer day, such pleasure
to swallow fruit, lingering on the stringy pit, caressing its ridges.

I don’t grieve getting older, it’s easier than I expected, knowing
when not to finish a dull book (what I read, what I write).

But today, I complain of the young, reluctant to write the word
political, loose talk of liberty disguised to obscure its opposite:

Companies claiming rights of citizens; politician deaf to science;
the creep of church into the voting booth; the patriotic act.

I glance at the next generation clustered outside the cafeteria,
lips stuck to plastic straws, fingers busy, their future uncertain.

I’ve become the grumpy man who won’t live to see the result
but what a day, looking ahead to peaches drenched in cream.