Tomatoes
The best ones
I ever ate I ate
that summer, him dead
six months, me not yet
forevered again
to anyone. Tomatoes
the only fever, many-
chambered, jelly-seeded
—probably slicers,
nothing rare. Dissected
into the same glass bowl
night after night for a dinner
date with the pulpy sun
on its way through
my yard. Fayetteville,
Arkansas, city of wreckage.
Mozzarella, basil, salt.
Oil, the August air
humid, nearly liquid.
One evening I sat
on my back stoop
in a puddle of light
and knew I could live
without him, and was.
I ate the same dinner
from the same bowl
until the decision
ceased to be a decision.
Copyright © 2026 by Katrina Vandenberg. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 19, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
“The first time I grieved the death of someone I deeply loved, I learned how weird grief could be. While grief could feel unbearable, it also made me feel intensely aware of beauty. At times, living with death made me feel fully alive. And, although my grief had a marked beginning, it never seemed to end. I just learned to carry it. ‘Tomatoes’ is a poem about the summer I learned this lesson. The poem’s short and often enjambed lines, and its generous use of white space, are meant to underscore how slow and silent, yet full, that summer felt.”
—Katrina Vandenberg
Katrina Vandenberg
