THE FEAST OF THE FIRST TOMATO

 

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It seems right to eat a little dirt this time,

right to leave the red, which is bright enough,

unwashed, right to let the blade unzip the skin 

along the axis and reveal the oozing constellation, 

right to let just a flake or two of salt rest on top 

and half dissolve into what’s already been absorbed:

the soil enriched by the slow alchemy of leaves

and dinner scraps that melted into each other,

June itself, its warmth—all of it in this reservoir 

filled with sugars and acid and the rain that kept you inside 

that morning when you drank another cup of coffee 

and realized you had not felt sick in months,

that something bad was over. Like this little globe

of transfigured sunlight that’s still glowing,

you are the good that surrounds you—and, oh, 

your lucky tongue about to experience 

what it won’t ever be able to describe.

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BIO:

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​​James Davis May is the author of two LSU Press poetry collections, most recently Unusually Grand Ideas, which was named to the Georgia Center for the Book's list of Books All Georgians Should Read. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Originally from Pittsburgh, he now lives in Macon, Georgia, where he directs the creative writing program at Mercer University.

 

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