Fresh cream, season's first berries,
hard nippled, tart, in grandmother's
Haviland bowls, cream on cream
with a curving golden rim. Fresh linen,
crisped, an ivy, fine-stitched edge,
laid with silver spoons. Carried
to the veranda by the maiden aunt,
who watches these blue breasts rinse
in the white of her walking,
knows the tenderness of such
skin. Carried to her brother, his wife,
who think nothing of her waiting
on them, who can't see the berries?
hillocks bunching in their white-silk
glaze, who spoon berries
into their wide mouths,
as she lingers to watch them violate
the lavender barrier of blue flesh.
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