A Grown Light

I went to my grandparents' house
in the early summer,
and there behind the garage
was a patch of yellow raspberries.
Their vines sprawled across mortar and brown earth
holding clusters of caught sun.

The flesh of that sun
hot in the hem of my dress as I ran it to the house.
My feet marking their existence in the earth,
and the smell of the air told me it was summer.
My nanny said I picked the first of the raspberries.
I told her I picked the light that grew by the garage.

I watched the bright windows of the garage
reflect sun
to the growing raspberries.
In the house
grandpa explained, saying it was the hold summer
had on the earth.

But it was the hold summer
had on me, and the magic of the garage
that made summer
shine like the sun
in a house
of raspberries.

While the raspberries
shown incandescent on the earth,
the space between the house
and the garage
grew larger, like the uncountable suns
hanging on branches of green summer.

The summer
that fed raspberries
gleaming sun
planted in the earth
behind the garage
at my grandparents' house.

A house that made summer
simpler than a garage's raspberry bush
and more meaningful than earth and sun.