Mama served as designated prime picker. 
Gramma’s job – entertain the toddler under two
who loves raspberries but had never picked before. 
Heavy fingered until he got the idea 
of gentle pull and leave the berry hats behind. 
Pick red, red, red, red not green or white. 
Put what you need straight away into tummy
lesson learned and what a vantage point
he had for jewels that hide low.  
Then off we go. Run lanes between rows. 
Pick dandelions. Crawl under wires
where the canes thin out. Learning 
to concentrate on immediate,
make up the rest as opportunity offers.
                        

We didn’t know that by noon he’d have a fever.
We only knew that he said he didn’t want to go
to daycare. Within himself, he found the will
to lift his lunch box, shuffle his feet in the gravel
toward to the car to be helped into his car seat. 

And we, his two grandmothers, saw this. I thought
of a 40-year-old life insurance salesman 
with a briefcase who no longer wants to sell promises
of support for others when a life is done, in that way
he walks to the family car on Monday morning.  

My unnamed sadness, such a little boy to trudge.
Later their call. His fever. Come get him. A weak smile
when I walk in. The way his eyes lift knowing
that I will take him home and accept his preference
to walk out on his own. To hold my hand 

in the parking lot. To let me lift him into the car
to accept Curious George with cardboard pages. 
What opened, that flood-love for a boy who knows
nothing about insurance, just reassurance I give
that he will learn the abundance of words for no.