Day 3: Poem/a/Day: A blackberry summer is recalled with affection

Blackberry Summer

We picked blackberries through August,
my fifteenth summer.
My grandmother held two pails, sturdy,
stained blue inside.
We worked in rhythm; I filled, she emptied
into the larger bucket we later carried up
one hill and down another.
I ate more than I picked—my fingers
stained bluish-black, my lips and tongue turning
varied colors of crushed irises as I devoured
each berry’s bittersweet juice.

Brambles scratched my knuckles, fold of my hand,
mound of my thumb, until red welts swelled,
and throbbed.
Later, my grandmother spread healing balm,
yet I tossed all night looking for a cool patch
of pillowcase to place my burning palms.

We boiled, stirred, crushed, and blended blackberries
into pulp, filled canning jars with jam, steam
rose from the stove, swirled around our heads,
my damp shirt clung to my bony shoulders,
her apron stuck against her ample breasts.

All winter we ate jam on scones and toast,
bowls of berries with cream, crusty blackberry pie,
tarts oozing with sugary syrup; I woke each morning
to blackberry perfume curling around
my room, forgetting the lattice of thin scars
beneath my elbow from when I reached deep
to gather a plump orb.

In all my life, nothing has ever been so pungent,
so tangy as a clump of blackberries on my tongue,
hot sun beating down, my grandmother humming
an old folk song—as we picked and picked,
until the whippoorwill called from a hidden branch
in the woods beyond.

by Rosalie Sanara Petrouske

Rosalie Sanara Petrouske teaches writing at Lansing Community College, and facilitates a local writer’s group, Writing at the Ledges. Blackberry Summer was previously published in Third Wednesday, Summer 2010 issue.