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Blackberries

 

 

I’m 49, hair a mess – ask my mother.

Doesn’t your husband tell you to do something about it?

I like her hair -- he says.

I don’t believe him. It is wild.

He reads the children The Cat in the Hat,

tells them I look like Thing One and Thing Two.

I do. And I’m a rascal too. Just like One and Two.

 

I’m 49 and I don’t share.

I hide the last hunk of gruyere,

stash the ripe raspberries out of reach.

Can I pack some of those big bulbous

bursting with juice blackberries in his lunch,

he asks, shyly, sweetly – he knows

how I feel about my stash --

I stiffen, bristle, nod a vague ‘yes’ --

these blackberries, so few, so flawless,

more precious for being mine alone.

The next day I put a few in his lunch,

then gulp down the rest in case he wants more.

 

I’m 49, but when I was 29 and we met,

his life was ripe with loss. He’d lost so much.

All he had left to love was his dog.

We watched it dig out

a slab of frozen pizza from the snow,

slink off and swallow quickly, lest anyone grab it.

When I tell my husband I finished the last blackberry,

he laughs. “You’re like a dog,” he says,

and musses my hair.

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