Raspberry Picking

by LYDIA COPELAND GWYN

The ripest fall into my hand,
receptacles ready to release

My daughter eats more than she collects,
each plump drupelet,
a sharp flicker on her tongue

When berries fall away like that,
easy and ready to give up the knotted place
that once sustained them,
the receptacle
becomes non-essential

Like the leaving of long-ago lovers
or family now departed

Emptying of an innermost room
in my body

I feel that sensation now
in my chest
in my abdomen,
something taken away
that used to be mine

A memory of spiced days
in my first love’s old apartment,
the furniture falling apart,
Saint-Saëns on the radio

Or my long-deceased brother
after the movie,
twirling in the potato chip aisle,
his black trench coat
flared as a dancer’s skirt

Today on the park’s hillside
we pick berries
thick with sun
and strewn with yellow jackets

I think about what losses might
wait for my daughter,
What silent clots might untie themselves
in the flow of her years

Her Ziploc bag
doesn’t fill as fast as mine
She’s bored and tired
of heat and thorns

But I go deeper for the darkest ones,
into the forest edges
Brambles catch in my jeans
in my sleeves
in my hair

It’s a gamble that pays

I find clump after clump
of rubied treasure
I pick, pick, pick
until I release myself
from the dream of thought