119. Tomatoes #2

Tomatoes remain uncommitted to our identifications, taxonomies, and recipes.

They're the seed, the plant and--or--the fruit: or the vegetable? You see how it goes with them.

They're neither solely of the Eastern nor solely of the Western Hemispheres, my dears.

Vines, they pass for bushes and shrubs. Green, yellow, red: the inspiration for traffic lights.

Cold, they adapt to juice, Bloody Mary, and sliced, flaccid picnic lethargy.

Vegetarian, they don't mind dating hamburgers.

Hot, they seduce sauces and salsas, dance with peppers, get down to Earth with cornmeal.

Stare at a tomato plant long enough, and you will become the one gazed at, red spots dotting your vision as you swoon in sunlight.

Some tomatoes are as fat as sultans, others as tiny as earrings.

If you think you know tomatoes, you are ripe for beguiling. Ordinary and rare, hybrid and heirloom, determinate and indeterminate, tomatoes are cosmopolitan phantoms, rural rogues, night-singers, code-bearers, food, and faith.

You say tomato, I say tomato, and the tomato keeps mum on the subject of articulation.

Welcome, my friend, to the mysterious garden. Reach, reach for the red and the round.