I stuffed the clots from the thorny patch

and forced them, capped them,

forced the whole glass batch into the fridge.

Golden raspberries, how can I

ensure you rot?

Brought out into the open air,

perhaps on an anecdotal hill,

the jar for the berries ossify to porcelain,

a prism polished, then crematory walls

of inlaid silver, with nothing to show

inside its milky membrane.

Respect this scene, its form.

But behind the mustard, under the fridge light,

stare in full jaundice the berries,

packed against the jar’s thin crystal

like people against the inner skin of a city train.

The words I say will change,

but what they contain will corrode.

Black in white in the refrigerator light.

I open the jar and see

I’ve picked too much and searched too far.

The question is hiding on my way to the trash.

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Scott Stevens is a poet and fiction writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. His work has been published in literary magazines such as Textploit, Glass Kite Anthology, and Polyphony H.S. He is a recognized California Arts Scholar, has attended the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio at the University of Iowa, and is the Editor-in-Chief of his high school’s literary magazine. He enjoys running, swimming, and reading books in Japanese and Mandarin.