Raspberry Patch

Summer is in and under and all around each leafand thorny cane and every weed and stalk of foxtailwoven among them, as if this were a tank brim fullof green, a slosh of sun-warmed greens without roomfor a breath between one leaf and the next but fora few white bindweed flowers bubbling into the lightand buoys of berries bobbing on the surface,

where during the night a black-and-yellow spiderhas spun an elaborate web, putting a dusty shineon one soft wash of green, and now, astraddleits center, pulls it together, one thin leg flexedon every spoke, shaking the dewdrops free, closingthe hole beneath her feet through which a littlelight has trickled, fallen, and been lost forever.

There’s butterfly milkweed, too, its flowers dippedin a kettle of fire, with white and blue butterfliescoming and going, staggering, finding their waythrough the hot July air, stumbling along overboulders of light, then clawing up onto the roughsponge-like tops of the blossoms, and stepping outonto them, kneeling to sip at the freshets of orange.

Then poison ivy as well, with waxy leaves of three,more bindweed with those tiny morning-glory flowers,and sticky vines of wild cucumber, all of whichhave over many summers learned how best to climbthe thorny berry stalks without hurting themselves,and closer to the earth, a twiney length of creeperhas crept unseen from miles away and years before.

And behind the patch, where the plywood sidingof the old garage lifts a yellow cuff and stepsover its own cool stone foundation, is a dampblack burrow leading down and in and under,a slide of mud dug slightly larger with each spring,where a groundhog lolls in semidarkness, and can hearfrom time to time a berry drop and roll a little way.