So Good

Ashley Kirkland

My dad grows tomatoes 

in his backyard in a cluster 

of pickle buckets he fills  

with dirt, wraps in deer fence 

so the fruits aren’t eaten 

when the night-stalkers emerge

from the trees in the midnight mist

to devour everything

with stalk or vine. It’s a process, 

the planting and the growing,

and he’s particular 

about the soil. He folds in dirt

from the backyard and brags 

about it, calling it local soil,   

as if they will taste like something  

other than tomatoes, as if the juice 

will taste like our hometown, 

like river water, rock moss, and silty mud.

I think the nightshades taste 

like warm sun, like they were baked 

in the humid, Ohio air 

and the smoke of the grill  

under the carport. The tomato skin 

is tight and smooth, like leather, 

and imperfect, the way things  

that come from home tend to be.   

He is gentle with them and leaves them on the vines  

until they’ve almost rotted,

so we have to eat them quickly. 

He sends us home 

with a  re-used grocery bag

full of hand-selected tomatoes. 

The giving process is understated, 

almost like getting rid of garbage.

I cut out the bad divots 

and throw the good bits 

like confetti into nearly everything   

from September into 

early October. Every meal

a celebratory goodbye 

to summer as the cold settles

into my fingertips. My son slips a piece, 

straight from the cutting board,

behind his pink lips and into 

the loud, echoing chamber  

of his toddler mouth. So good, 

he says, juice dripping   

down his chin. So good.