I Imagine I Answer Your Letter

God knows how many blueberries
I’ve picked since noon—fingers,
lips, tongue, stained
the same blue summer dark
the sky is turning, and I am standing
breathless on a hill on fire
with hawkweed, the sun
dropping into the open mouth
of ocean. If you were here now, you’d know
I’m the same: Never enough
of anything. Remember

the pine-plank table
I built from that old collapse
of barn? Three days into August
it’s lined with jars of blue, preserved
and labeled with my name.
Tonight again I’ll cook and stir,
drink wine until my legs begin to sway
like reeds, until the sun
takes back the room,
touches every object—the way
blueberries are touched, outside, on the hill.
If you were here now
you’d know I’m the same
woman you left
standing here,
gasping.

-- Bellevue Literary Review