into those
fuzzy cardboard plats of
medicine-bottle-green,
the blueberries—
the very last of the season
lying on the table,
shrunken and bloodied
like promises I have neither kept
nor broken yet,
like the people among us out here
who have already come through
too much
this summer.
I long to take them home;
get them out of the sun,
to plunge them deep
into the back of the freezer
and halt their decomposing.
I would pay anything—
but no,
I should keep walking.
