Summer Food

Summer food ripened in childhood’s backyard when small fingers pressed plumped skins for the first sign of give in flesh when fruit was ready to eat. I could judge the picking time to a day when, under a hot sun, sour turned sweet and there was a brief glut before birds got them or they began to rot. Only almonds lasted. They tasted best when outer jackets first split and peeled back to a pitted shell and high branches were whipped with a bamboo pole in a hail of manna to crack and scoff down. Locked in hard shells they kept me fed until winter damp tainted their taste and then there was nothing more to eat in childhood’s backyard.