Alan John Branford

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The Peach

My eyes alight upon a ripened peach,
Obscured by leaves that hide its nakedness.
If I stretch tall, I have it in my reach,
And soon it rests, released, in my caress.

Autumnal colours of its skin, observe,
And fuzz as from Apollo’s treasure trail.
Admire its pure callipygian curves,
The buttocks of an adolescent male.

Armeen, the Persian youth who tends the trees
Has brought me to his orchard just at dawn.
Reclining ’neath a tree, my treat I seize,
The juice runs down my chin and naked brawn.

We hear a bell, too soon I’m called to teach.
I gather up my clothes – ah, there’s my peach!

Copyright © 14 October 2024, Alan John Branford

This sonnet, in the common English form, is a playful, fictional story. The writer is an English teacher in an Iranian school. Armeen is the local youth who tends a peach orchard. Armeen takes the teacher to see the orchard early one morning, before school.

The peach tree is the species Prunus persica, so named because the tree and its fruit were introduced to Europe from Iran (Persia). It was someimes referred to as the Persian plum. The peach tree, though, is most likely to have been domesticated from wild trees in China and thence introduced into Iran.

This poem was read to the October 2024 meeting of the Friendly Street Poets, Adelaide.

(October 2024)

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Last Update: 14 November 2024