The soft touch of breast
And the red bell pepper
have in common
summer,
when both are discovered.

Do you remember your neighbor
when you were 11
And she 13?
You could barely stand to look
at her. So bright,
like standing between
the vast expanse of ocean between Honolulu
and San Diego
and the setting sun.
Or the way old movies
show older films fry
on the reel, its temporal wonder
too much for the cellulose,
creating projector sunspots
and toasted halos.
Her hairbrush everywhere
in that young girls realize security blankets
cannot be stitched babies
and instead must be compact indicators of womanhood.
Deep in the bottom
of her purse, you
watched her grasp blindly
for the familiar rubber handle.
Once, twice, and then
a tousle,
upside down, upright.

You learned to cook that summer
as your parents worked.
You watched tv
and began to hear words like
brunoise, hollandaise.
And the crackle of vegetable skin
in the oven
reminded you of
…you cannot remember,
but stuffed peppers
in the salamander
now spark images of
sunburns and murder.
And when your mother brought pastry from
the Lithuanian bakery next door
you began to wonder
why they took all the girls to the auditorium
last year and how they returned
with looks of bashful knowledge.

Eventually, the vegetables in the garden became your prize.
You knew the flesh
of everything red without sight.
Captured in your hand, you could tell
what was ripe and best.
Your teeth felt masculine
bearing down on glossy flesh.