J + J 4E, A Golden Shovel

after Emily Dickinson, #269

I.
Carved in the pecan tree out back—where wild
raspberries swell black as those autumn nights
we slipped from my mother’s house, be-wild-
ered with possibilities and fumbling with nights’

cumbersome clothes—I find entwined initials. Were
I more the sentimental sort, recalling when you and I
used to swing in the Hatteras hammock with
nothing weightier thought-wise beyond thee

and me, I’d think back to my own wild-
ing under your hands, those desperate nights.
—Whose initials are they, those two J’s? Should
I whisper ours? But “ours” was not a state to be—
better to let time’s scar fade white. Our
love was really just mine—pallid pearl’s luxury.

II.
How the etching with its letters gleams futile
now—as if chapped wood could lend us the
permanence I sought. How my heart winds

—wound—itself like streamers to your maypole to
keep you close.—What follies, 23!—I’d not wish a-
gain to let one harvest that fervent lump of heart
ripe as dragon fruit. Your bite, cached in-
side a rosebud, left bruises like raisins, was a port-

al to domed gardens and dirt fields—I was done-
for, and you knew it, with every sigh, with
every opening. You floated me on e-the-
real breath and heat. Where was your compass-

ion, your sign to halt? Could you have done
it, halted my entanglement? I wonder. With-
in a year came your unspoken goodbye—the
X-marks-love’s-spot vanished from the chart.

III.
My back to the tree, I pluck g-rowing
berries, chuck them in a bowl, or my mouth, in-
spired by summer to make jam. This is my Eden

now—dimpled berries rupture on my tongue. Ah,
sweet quaking taste buds: blot out—no, cast out—the
snake of memory, white diamond as sea-

foam, as a few hanging clusters stunted by the might
of shade. Other floods, other senses—you and I
skirred enough to prod a knife resolute. But
carving wood—and craving you—are moor-
ing lines better cast off youth’s wharf.—Tonight

my heart, plain dented thing, I name for raspberries. In-
side, though: a hint of dragon fruit, a tinge of thee—