Raspberries

The way we can’t remember heat, forget

the sweat and how we wore a weightless

shirt on chafing skin, the way we lose

the taste of raspberries, each winter; but

know at once, come sharp July, the vein

burning in the curtain, and from that light

– the block of sun on hot crushed sheets –

the blazing world we’ll walk in,

was how it was, your touch. Nor the rest,

not how we left, the drunkenness, just

your half-stifled, clumsy, frightened reach,

my uncurled hand, our fingers, meshed,

-like the first dazzled flinch from heat

or between the teeth, pips, a metal taste.