The skin is firmly smooth against my touch,
the color flushed in orange red or rose.
There’s no aroma I detect as such
until the flavor’s cut to court my nose.
The surface first resists incisive teeth –
I’m hungry, so I push into the peel.
I penetrate the fruit and find beneath
the skin and flesh a heart as hard as steel.

I woke too weak today, so full of thirst
and shaky that I blamed the glass of wine
I drank last night as encore to the first,
but water didn’t quench that dearth of mine.
Instead I found elixir in the clean
and vivid substance of a nectarine.