My playground nemesis
was hell-bent on embarrassing me,
so when I hopscotched too hard
for my first-grade lungs
and my cheeks flushed as ruby as pomegranates,
like the low hanging fruit they were,
he called them—and me
—tomato instead.
Turns out shame, not just cardio,
turns me bright, bloody, brassy red
because when his syllables hit my ears
they branded me,
dyed my skin fuchsia
to match the juice box stain
Mom couldn’t quite scrub off my cardigan.
Turns out he didn’t have to tell me
(he did, of course)
that I kept getting red and more red and, yes, redder.
I felt almost feverish
as oxidization ate away
at my face and neck.
Melting right into the blacktop,
I hated him and hopscotch
and my red-hot blood.
Turns out my father is also a tomato.
Irish genes must make extra special arteries
from our hearts to our cheeks
so the blood pumps right up into our faces.
Something like that.
One Thanksgiving he told a story we’d heard over and over,
and this time my all-American aunt teased,
echoed the way he’d said “garage.”
Ga-rage, not grrage.
He turned tomato red,
and I saw in him
the brassiness that first grade made me hate.
Warmth again kindled up inside me
but this time flickered
across to the head of the table
where he sat, still more than a little pink.
This time some species of pride
had crept up on me,
restained me even deeper,
and I hoped he felt its glow.