Undressing the Peach

It's around a hundred outside
as I sit in the cool lunchroom and
undress the peach on a paper plate.

I peel away the ripe vermillion-magenta skin,
ease it from the succulent flesh,
slicing with clear plastic knife into



the luscious meat and recall how
Mother so enjoyed peach season --
now near a year since her passing.

My fingers are sticky with juice,
the sweet flesh stained blood-pink
and bitter closest to the pit.

Christopher T. George

* Edited to make it "closest to the pit" instead of "closest to the hard pit."