To pick raspberries
 Elliott batTzedek

To pick raspberries you must
be prepared to pluck each separate
rain-swollen bud — a greedy, impatient tug
tumbles cane’s blushing yield deep
below bramble, every fruit lost a sin against
your waiting, wanting mouth.

To pick raspberries you must
consider the sun, how it arcs across the ripe belly
of sky, must trace its rays’ reach and seek
under raspy leaf’s edges the bejeweled desires
that hang, pulsing, surprising alike the light,
the finger, and the thorn.

To pick raspberries you must
love someone more than you love raspberries,
for in the thicket of alone only the pull of pleasing
another is enough to delay what you crave, to bear
the bucket home, and only with blessings lush to crush
sweet and sweet and sweet until your tongues are sated.