I come back from the upper fields with
a fistful of zinnias, the other hand
clutching my shirt full of tomatoes
going pale orange. My pockets bulge
with a perfection of jalapeños, their
shiny ovals slipping from my fingers
to ride alongside my thighs, thumping.

The heat calls up a fine sweat in
this early morning when we’ve picked
three fat tomato horn worms, gently
set them into the deeper pasture to
forage on anything but the produce.
There will be sphinx moths aplenty, and
while we don’t begrudge them a feast

we relocate them until later in the season.
Fine leaved milkweed frosts side pastures,
Black-eyed Susans burst like tiny suns from
poison ivy thickets. Soon, goldenrods will
unfurl, point to the drawing down of summer,
but for today, mockingbirds wheel with the
wind and I place the zinnias in a pink glass.