To Eat a Peach

I was young and could eat a peach
in July or August,
when my teeth would glide
through its sweet wet flesh
and slightly coarse skin.
No ripping, displacement,
or jawing at the pit
and choking
when it slips down my throat,
croak.
To eat a peach in January
is not the same thing,
a stone fruit in its entirety,
she.
And my teeth make
a ghastly crunch
against its hard meat,
tougher still
than the summer’s pit.
Now my peach,
is it sweet
when it slides down my throat?
Its starch turned to sugar
as it matures on its peach tree,
see?
Indeed
she
is my sweet peach
in summer,
 in its entirety.
Stone and love and nectarines
are merely ghosts to me.
I bite my teeth into a fruit
grabbed directly from the tree.
Inside is a seed,
or a tough nut to crack.
depending on your point of view
and love.
Love?
Indeed,
eternally.
Juice and flesh and skin
surround it on all sides.
She
is sweetness and sweat and
a pleasure on my teeth.