What drifts away

I plop a grape tomato directly into my mouth from my dirty hand. My grandpa checks the garden on his way to the rusty metal drum where he burns our garbage. Anything that can’t be composted goes there. I follow him around like a vestigial farmhand, snapping tomatoes off the vine while he pokes around the chicken wire that scaffolds burgeoning fruits on the hill behind our house and the remains of a crumbling barn. I proudly march behind him, holding the pea green Pyrex bowl at my hip to gather our spoils. My older sister ahead of me has her own container filled higher than mine. We race around to get our bowls filled, eager…