The thickets are blowsy and serrated
as August scrapes past its zenith.
You’d think them as impenetrable
as a fence of penitentiary razor wire
but bears have ploughed tunnels
the breadth of a storm drain
in the wake of their snacking
and on the path, piles of scat punctuate
their claim to this spread. A blackberry
is a drupelet, cousin to the solitary plum
but bunched in clusters, a tiny
glistening aggregate bearing flecks
of pits that stick in my molars’
clefts. Syrupy and astringent, they are
the flavor of waning summer.
Seasons fester on. The bears
in their indiscriminate forage
left me enough fruit for one more
batch of scones. I pluck onward
through their thorny negative space.
How do bears pack on enough calories
in these shortening days to smolder
through winter, self-anesthetized
in their dens? Soon we will cluster
round the woodstove, flannel-wrapped
and bland, that purpling sweetness
a gritty memory on the tongue.
