All the long summer it hung in leaf-shadow, soaking up whatever of sunshine found it there. Most had been harvested before it: Beefsteaks, Black Krims, cherries in yellow and red — each glowing in memory like lilypads that pave a savoury path through August. But when the weather took its turning, the last few hard green fruits were slipped into hopeful brown paper bags.

This one was the last of them, and surely the most succulent: to mark the end of summer in a final salutation of the sun.

What a surprise to discover it yellow, lifted out of shadow: a mid-summer sun’s Fall rising. Cupped so, we feel the full weight of a season. Two salads, the wedges radiant. Annointed with oil and feta, basil-garlanded: it looks a lowered flag.

Or, slipping down the throat like sunset.