Belladonna

remember? how we used to pick
the belladonna berries –

the slick oily black of the skins made
you whisper secrets of the night that you
thought you learned from your sisters.

just a tiny shrub, that's all, and
one that could have grown eggplants, a burst
of rich velveteen voluptuousness, curves like
hips, or red berries, juicy under their
thin skin, but still bitter when you brought your fingers,
dyed with the spilled wholesomeness of a perfectly sealed
space, to your mouth. or, nothing at all, just leaves –

even if there was nothing, we still would have played, dug up
worms in the heat, followed the snails after the rain,
plucked leaves for the

he-loves-me, he-loves-me-not because we didn't
have daisies. we still would have sat on that wall, not caring
about the scrapes on our knees that we'd get when we
hopped down for dinner.

but i remember the careful way we used to touch the belladonnas,
like nuns rolling prayer beads in their hands, reverence
for a power greater than you, that is not you, that can
cut you down in a second, just as soon as the skin breaks.
i remember the fear, and the endless
stepping up to the line to ask, so?

you're grown up now, you can order oysters and have
two glasses of wine with dinner. you think you know the touches of
the night you used to talk about, you think you can use them:
at midnight, then again at six, then again at noon -
(that's how you know you know them, because they no longer
belong just to the night).

*edited version. originally written on april 24th.