A bowl full of spaghetti with home-grown sauce. Remembered summer in a bowl.

Bottling

This memory means nothing to you now.
You have a glut.
They are hanging all around you in gaudy clusters.
Bursting at the seams.
Sickeningly ripe.
There are so many
you neglect the glasshouse
some days,
for fear of coming face-to-face
with that which you have not yet done.

But in January
There will be a dreary day that never quite wakes up.
Feeling restless and unsatisfied,
and mistaking it for hunger,
you fill a pot of steaming water
with golden strands,
seasoned with salt,
and pooling oil.
You will tip a tide of 
blood-red summer 
over the top and eat.

And though your heart 
is hidden in the silt 
at the bottom of winter. 
Waiting.
Beating time.
It will stir, and turn, and dream again
of your August toil.
Dripping hands 
peeling fruit upon fruit.
Despising it all the while.
Putting it by for a day you think will never come.

And you will taste 
yearning, 
for that kitchen where the 
sky outside turns 
navy blue, so slowly.
The long, 
pregnant dusk.
The remembrance 
bittersweet, 
with vinegar 
and spice.

And you will be glad.