Picking Crowberries

Late this fall we pick crowberries

because the blueberries had gone,

skins split from frost, wrinkled purple.

You pulled branches up, hoping,

but we had come too late.

The crowberries, hang low on moss,

still firm. We settle for them,

too seedy for anything but syrup.

I kneel by the plank path and reach

for piney stalks. I am the new arrival,

dropped in the woods with you.

My fingers feel newly attached, spindly, clean.

Yours feel certain. As I drop the first handful,

they bounce across the bottom of the bucket.

At the truck stop, the waitress

sees our stained hands, smiles, “Berries?”

“Yes,” we say, forks poised above pie,

ready to break the crust.