Fran Schumer
​
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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