Raspberries

Late June to late September it read, Scotland
you showed me the advert and said, Let’s go!

We caught the train north
one ticket between us and two cheese rolls

Into July in white-washed block accommodation
a decent shower, where sometimes you left me to wash alone

Warm Westerlies and long-lit evenings brought out your freckles
turned my skin the colour of the fruit in our luggies

August brought heat, midges, cooled the nights
though the taste of each stolen sùbh-craoibh held strong

Your laugh stayed with me too, like the pink stains
where you lasciviously pinched two berries to bursting on my vest

Come September something, a momentary glitch
like a Hairst-blink, barely seen, switched

You talked more of home and where you might go next
Spoke of I, not we, nor us


~


n.b. NaPoWriMo 2022 Day Two prompt. Take a word from the poets' paradise that is the virtual world of Haggard Hawks and put it to poetic use. I chose Hairst-blink (a flash of late-summer lightning that comes as a surprise) from the HH blog. Luggie is a Scottish noun for the basket tied to the waist for collecting the harvested fruit.  Sùb-craoibh is Gaelic for 'raspberry'.