by May Swenson
My hands are murder-red. Many a plump head
drops on the heap in the basket. Or, ripe
to bursting, they might be hearts, matching
the blackbird's wing-fleck. Gripped to a reed
he shrieks his ko-ka-ree in the next field.
He's left his peck in some juicy cheeks, when
at first blush and mostly white, they showed
streaks of sweetness to the marauder.

We're picking near the shore, the morning
sunny, a slight wind moving rough-veined leaves
our hands rumple among. Fingers find by feel
the ready fruit in clusters. Flesh was perfect
yesterday . . . June was for gorging . . .
sweet hearts young and firm before decay.

"Take only the biggest, and not too ripe,"
a mother calls to her girl and boy, barefoot
in the furrows. Don't step on any. Don't
change rows. Don't eat too many." Mesmerized
by the largesse, the children squat and pull
and pick handfulls of rich scarlets, half
for the baskets, half for avid mouths.
Soon, whole faces are stained.

A crop this thick begs for plunder. Ripeness
wants to be ravished, as udders of cows when hard,
the blue-veined bags distended, ache to be stripped.
Hunkered in mud between the rows, sun burning
the back of our necks, we grope for, and rip loose
soft nippled heads. If they bleed - too soft -
let them stay. Let them rot in the heat.

When, hidden away in a damp hollow under moldy
leaves, I come upon a clump of heart-shapes
once red, now spiderspit-gray, intact but empty,
still attached to their dead stems -
families smothered as at Pompeii - I rise
and stretch. I eat one more big ripe lopped
head. Red-handed, I leave the field.

Plzzzzzzzzzzzz help me!!!! I don't understand this at all.... I need to know the theme of this poem and what it means

Sounds like strawberry picking to me. Have you ever seen strawberries on the vine? Here's a link which might help you visualize it:

[www.plowcreek.org]


Les



Post Edited (05-13-04 00:37)

It's a murder story. Strawberries slaughtered by a blackbird and human family members.

Good one Hugh, Masque of the Red Death... hehe.


Les

Transcience of perfection in nature. Perfect one day, gone the next.
Sexual imagery: hearts, ravished, grope, nippled