Ignoring the Linguist

When the professor explained that

the raspberry was, in part, lost,

that is, meaning ... oh, as he put it:

"The morpheme of 'rasp' is in one sense full,

but we have lost its meaning ... berry,

however, we understand ..."

I think of red

raspberries, fresh in late spring, cream

their tiny sea, as the veranda fills

with the gift of mockingbirds

while I wait for you, that gray bird

doing covers of the quail and the wren.

Fragile as the empty heart

of the raspberry that closes

about it under our tongue ...

while the light, because it is summer,

refuses to leave.