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Poetry from The Literary Review
Eating Tomatoes in Heaven
KRISTY NIELSEN
The woman in a coma opens her eyes to the white
ceiling of heaven. Will she have firm breasts again?
Her body twitches in an underground ripple.
She hears her husband whisper, “I haven't been brave
enough to kiss her,” and thinks she's back
at her favorite time. Her laugh rises
in a gurgle. She sees the tomatoes of August scattered
about the patio, seeds running out, sides pushed
against the cement where they fell.
He touches her foot to show he's there, strokes
her sunken legs, the veins the children caused.
She places his hands on her hips and sashays him
across the dewy lawn. She blows cobwebs
from her mouth to say “let's remember
this always.” Her stomach flat as the back
of a shovel, the ligaments and joints limber
as roots, breasts like ripe tomatoes.
She takes her bare feet across the patio
to God's back door and turns. “Bring her back,”
her husband begs. The woman tries. But the step
is slow as childbirth, feet like pianos, her head
a safe. Then she falls in a crumpled heap,
and someone pulls up a white sheet.
She imagines tomatoes—an elegant Italian plum,
the thick Iowa, a bush of cherries—all perfectly ripe,
then falling to the patio just as she looks.
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