Black Raspberry Canes, and: A Nickel on Top of a Penny

Black Raspberry Canes

Nobody, my father said, could get so manyscrapes and scratches accidentally:without them I probably would not have liked it so much.Here was a part of natureno one else would want to touch.

The longer I waited the riper they got,as long as I kept track, as long as I had notwaited too late in the day; then I found dots,scabs, stems, pale caps or buttons, bird-eaten or parched.No more than three deep in the Tupperware bucket; that way

they would not crush one another but could ridedownhill, then stay cool in the fridge, and staydistinct amid their glossyoverlaps, their tiny black-on-black embossedlike ridges on an alligator hide.

The berries came off when pulled gently,between middle finger and thumb.The first ones to look ready evidentlyhad nothing to comebetween their segments and the new attentionsof the unrelenting sun.

A Nickel on Top of a Penny

after César Vallejo

I am going to disappear in Belmont,after taking a walk in intermittent rain.I will vanish one day in Belmont—don’t correct me—on a warm day like today, a Thursday, in fall.

I know it even more than I know how we all wantcontradictory things, like security and excitement,immortality, hang gliders, gumdrops, a home, and allthe space in the world—Eden, Paris, Tokyo, Cockaigne.

My writing hand hurts. To the good friends who asked me to dinner,I’m afraid I should tell you not to expect me.When you set the table, say, “Stephanie couldn’t be here,although we were good to her; we gave her presents

for Christmas and such; we answered most of her letters,importunate as they became; we tried not to offend her;we sat through her chatter about piano lessons,

and telephoned her in the midst of a snowstorm last year.We think we could not have treated her any better.We never believed she’d simply disappear.”