The structural integrity of raspberries
Concerns me now
As you do not
Fragile is far from the word I’m looking for
Reluctant, I’ve washed them and
There is red everywhere, for it’s
July: starved for it
I cross the street, puckered by hope and rain
Two beautiful women, hair cropped
One carrying a mulatto child blond and dark on her hip
Ask me for two dollars
How very exact
And unmelting
Perhaps they are undercover
And seeing what kind of person will respond
To the cherries—Bing!—of their twin mouths
Perhaps they are hungry
In any case, they do not smile
And I am seduced
Into handing over a hard coin
Are so much more intelligent
Than our own
Here, at every corner, one sees the evidence
That the structural integrity of pigeons is
Not that much greater than that of raspberries
How strange to see that spatter
On the road (they named the ruby after it)
In Paris they pitter-patter back
From the brink of non-integrity
Unexpectedly, as the néant yawns
As though my mental shooing has somehow
Pinged on a bird wave of thought
My friend says she has painted a room
The colour of berries, strained
In the heat my dreams are not rooms
But fruit not yet crushed
Not you
