Tomatoes

Originally posted here in September of 2015.
Dates to 2000 or so following the death of a close friend at Easter that year; the original is long lost.
This is an attempt to recreate it, knowing I’m no longer the person who wrote that original. 

RIP, Terry Warren.

I come home
craving tomatoes.
I go to my backyard bed

and pick whatever’s ripe
for my favorite summer meal: 
thick-sliced plum tomatoes,

Gorgonzola cheese, 
a few shreds of basil, 
balsamic vinegar, light on the olive oil.

You once questioned me:
why not the more traditional Mozzarella?
I said it’s because I feel that 

strong blues make flavors pop
and without strong flavors,
what’s the point?  

You tasted it, agreed, told me later 
you could no longer imagine 
not using a strong blue cheese

in a tomato salad, and I was as well pleased
as I could be that we’d fallen once again into 
the same place on something.

I remember this as I stare into
strong blues and bright reds in this bowl,
stare into oil bubbles,

a brown slick of vinegar, remember

you weren’t here to help me 
plant this year, to plant the beds with me

scant weeks after your passing;
weren’t here to help me weed
and toss and water and feed;

realize as if for the first time
that you aren’t here to help me savor 
the likely last summer salad of the year,

picked ahead 
of the inevitable 
killing frost.