What I Learned Picking Blackberries at the Farm Dump
That a world filled with rusted tin cans and cobalt blue glass shards
from old cold cream pots spins out
buckets of fat beaded globes fed by thunder and sun, fed by
hot summer downpours washing down gullies through thickets of thorn.
That the thickets bear fruit atop great arching sprays on the sharp-studded
canes of the past.
That canes terrify flesh.
That some glossy berries are tight, bitter, juiceless, a mouthful of grit.
That I spit these ones out.
That it’s hard to know which ones are which until tested by tongue.
By then it’s too late— all that sour’s inside.
But also—when perfect— the sweet’s inside too.
That the thorns on the canes punish any resistance with barbed hooks curved back, drawing blood.
To escape you must reach deeper in.
That ticks live there too.
That calm is demanded and a rough long-sleeved shirt buttoned collar
to cuff, canvas pants, heavy boots, and a coffee can hung on a string.
That the dark, richest berries need shade to grow sweet.
That they purple my hands as I pick, and they purple my mouth as I eat,
and they purple this jam cooked with sugar and lemon
pried open in winter and spooned out on toast
with the purple of all of it:
present, past, body, blood, bittersweet, heat, rust, and sky.
HAYDEN SAUNIER is the author of A Cartography of Home and four other books of poetry. Read more.
First published in U City Review.