Our first tomato has been redeemed,
having raced ahead of its still-greenish
siblings, precious as a first pay-check.
More adept neighbours have cultivated
vines of ruby-rich rounds, popping
with the vitality of green-tinted fingers,
while we cradle our (only) tomato,
a temperate miracle too quickly
consumed. How long did it take to ripen,
become worthy of a wage, this literal fruit
of labour steeped by sun, devoured
as the smallest denomination in salad.
Work doesn’t always offer a reward
for its reckoning, so we take this tomato
as a gift, seeds blown by an accidental
gust, though nothing in nature is ever
by chance; tomato as a token: enter
and play, the garden’s glorious arcade.
