For Margaret

The day I met you you were 96 and in need of a secretary;
I was 19 and in need of a job.
For the next year we frustrated each other:
I was too young to understand your typewriter,
you were too hard of hearing to understand anything I said.

When I bite into a tomato I think of you,
standing in your garden that first day.
You were eating a tomato, warm from the sun,
the seeds dribbling onto your blouse.
You offered me one, and we ate tomatoes together in the yard
before getting down to business.

When I'm 96, I hope to be like you:
still businesslike,
still enjoying summer's fruits.