Berries this afternoon in the sun
pulled warm into our buckets from long thorny whips
purpling and pricking our fingers –
sugar-dusted and crusted,
baking now, bubbling in thickened juices
filling our rooms with late-summer aroma.
In early dusk my dear brings me hot pie –
so well-intended, so innocent in the making
so perfectly imperfect.
My love loves first blackberry pie
next, to make it for me.
The sweetness goes deep in him.
How can I not adore
the red stain of his lip, his happy blue teeth
as we taste the folly of union?
For I care not for blackberry pie –
gritty paste around seedy fruit,
undelicious until wholly given.
Hot indigo jam fills and sates,
kiss-bruised sticky purple pearls;
our eyes glaze over in surfeit,
black as berries with love.