Blackberry Pie

On the hottest days

In the end of summer,

Back when we lived in the city,

My mother used to make blackberry pie.

She'd give my brother and I

A white construction bucket

And send us into the brambles

Outside of our apartment building,

Where we could hardly hear

The screaming commuters

Suffering the crowded I5 corridor

Over our own childish anticipation.

We'd picked enough berries by now

That we knew which ones were ready

By the color and feel of 'em,

And we were tough kids...

Knowing there was a pie to be had,

We didn't mind grabbing a handful

Of thorny vines to get to the good ones.

We'd pluck one plump blackberry

And drop it into the bucket,

Then one more, that was too purdy for droppin'

So we'd eat that one...

And by the time our Little hands were covered in pin pricks,

And our mouths

were stained in berry juice,

We'd stumble back to the apartment

In our clown makeup

And dirty T shirts,

And drop a bucket of berries on the floor

For my mother

Like we'd just come home from

a 9 to 5...

I'd wash the blood off my hands

And sit patiently in a chair near the kitchen

And watch her mix the flour and roll the dough, and mash all those perfect berries into a slurry,

Pour it all in a pan,

And slide it into the oven,

And I swear

Every poor kid in the building

Got jealous when they smelled what was comin' from our kitchen. . .

After a time,

She'd pull a hard-earned pie from the oven

And my brother and I would watch the steam pourin' of it,

Knowing it'd hurt just as bad as pickin all those berries to take a bite,

And as much as we wanted to dig into that pan

Despite burning our dirty fingers,

We knew this pie was worth the wait.

These days,

I've traded blackberry pie

For cheap wine,

Even though

I know that the best things take time,

Like forgiveness,

Because everything tastes better

Knowing you worked for it

Now, my brother and I

Tend to bond over decent whiskey

And we're more likely

to bloody our fingers

On guitars named after women,

And I can't remember the last time

I ate a slice of pie,

'cause they never look quite the same

In a glass case,

At some roadside diner,

Where a lot of lonely people

Look at them in passing

Imagining their childhoods.

And a glass of whiskey

Will never quite look like my mother in an apron,

But sometimes

It does look like my brother

Grinning ear to ear,

And though

It won't make up for the

Bloody fingertips,

Sometimes,

It reminds me

That my mother

Used to make

Blackberry pie.

-Johnny Bourbon.