38 • LEGACY
BY PAULA MACENA Call the witness to the stand; the jury wants to know how you hold peaches like a heartbeat, how it always tastes better when it’s been plucked by your hands. (Truth: you didn’t always know how to pick the ripest of the bunch.) Tell them how you grow your own peach trees outside of Georgia’s borders, how you could compare the sweetness to manna, how you never get sick of its taste. (Truth: it’s only ever godsent when your lover plants the seeds.) Can you spill your secrets the same way the juice overflows in your cupped palms? Can you share how you hold white wine in the back of your throat like you’re saving up ammo? (Truth: you weren’t made with a soldier’s heart, and your father’s farmhand dreams continue to elude you.) They don’t know that the promised land grows its fruits in your backyard, that Eden was the blueprint for the garden planted behind your fence. (Truth: you used to sleep amongst its flowers. It was the only place that ever felt like home.)
