Wild Fruit

Fingers stained purple with wild fruit

Who cared the name

The lace of my Easter dress caked with summer mud

The powder of worn paths dusted my feet

My shins

Knees skinned from shoeless bike rides to nowhere

Every tree climbed

My only fear, the dark

And what might lurk within it

Endless warm days dyed my hair the color of straw

My mother’s breast, my home

I rode her shoulders high

My hands woven in her parted hair

I, her Arabian

Her, my majestic elephant

Safe, though teetering above asphalt

I never asked where we’d end up

When we’d arrive

Who we’d be there

A passenger, dozing, counting clouds

We sang songs

We called the sun out from behind clouds

Licked sweet candy from our fingers

Laughed

Feet kick up on dashes and out windows

Picnics on patched grass

In my eyes she was god

I’d wake with the immediate instinct to find her lap

Sitting quietly, following the lines of her face

Not knowing what she was writing

Not knowing the color of the sky just before dawn

But she knew

She was lifting the looming anvil

And all I could see was the sun.