Strawberry Picking
J.R. Solonche
Picking strawberries (the strawberries
that have been stepped on, on the ground under
the leaves of the plants in the long rows of the field
are like squashed animals, soft under our shoes),
we step with care between the rows of plants
with their berries, ripe red (ripe-red, a color
only these strawberries are), ripe and red and
heavy, weighty with the blood of summer.
We pick the ripest only, the weightiest,
those strawberries readiest to fall. How hot
it is in the open strawberry field, bending
along these long rows, and I have neglected to bring
a hat to protect my head from the hot sun.
We move slowly, from plant to plant, close
to the ground, peeking under the leaves
for the reddest berries which hide from us
like shy animals. I find a reddest, ripest berry
and hold it up to show it to you with a finder's pride.
It is big as a peach, red as a sultan's prize ruby,
shaped like a heart , and I go over to where you
are hunched low to the ground three rows over,
and I offer it to you, this heart-shaped, ruby-
colored berry, big as a peach, and you bite
half of it because you cannot wait and it is so hot
in the open strawberry field, and give the other
half back to me which I too eat, surrounded by
crushed strawberries, strewn and bloody.
Nominated for the National Book Award and nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize, J.R. Solonche is the author of 34 books of poetry and coauthor of another. He lives in the Hudson Valley.