Strawberries

It rained yesterday.
It rained and it washed all the mud down our street.
I went in the garden, my shoes got all wet.
Darn summer showers that smell of soaked earth.
I went in the garden, I set down my fruit basket,
And started to dig.
Until I found strawberries, crushed by the foul phlegm of sand grains and
Dead leaves.
My hands still felt cold when I washed them with hot, steamy water
From under the tap. I closed it, and ran
Ran down the porous cement stairs that stung my bare feet,
To the beat of a popular tune our neighbor Jerry played,
To my friend's house.
My friend used to stick strawberries to the tips of her fingers and
Eat them off, licking her lips with vigor.
I knocked on the door twice and waited, strawberry basket in hand.
My hand wouldn't reach the doorbell those years,
Even standing on tiptoes.
When minutes passed and I heard nothing but the roar of an airplane's rotor,
I knew just where she would be.
Pushing my head between iron bars of the fence, wiggling
Wiggling myself inside.
My bum touched the wet grass as I fell into it,
Strawberries scattered around me.
I picked them up.
With my basket beside me, I skipped round her house,
Past the yellow tulips her mother had planted.
I skipped round the house, and called out her name.
She didn't answer.
For a long wretched second I thought I was wrong,
I was wrong and she wasn't out here.
With my hands, I pushed through the bush of white jasmine.
Some petals fell, got torn and twisted up by my toes, and I didn't care.
They were just petals.
Just petals,
Not a girl, a girl I knew, a girl I maybe loved.
I say maybe because we were so young back then.
When I pushed past the jasmine bush, head first, I saw her.
She was hanging from a tree.
Her bare feet pointing straight down, so unlike Wile E Coyote when he found
No land under him.
Her face looked so pale, her hair hung free.
I walked over and held her hand.
It was cold
And wet like the leaves and the grass
After the rain that had buried my strawberries.
I remembered my mom said not to stay too long.
So I walked back to the front of the house, and climbed through the fence
And walked up the porous cement stairs. A lizard ran past me.
I lunged in to catch it, but it shed its tail and fled under our house.
Twisting my head on the muddy walk, I peered down the hole,
Yet I couldn't see it.
"What are you doing?" my mom said. "I just washed your clothes.
What are you doing getting them dirty again?"
So I jumped up and wiped the grime off my knees,
Dropping the lizard tail somewhere,
And I flashed her a big cheery smile, and told her how
Sorry I was.
"Fine. We're having Mexican for dinner tonight."
She paused, and looked at me strangely.
Her neck made a sharp angle with the rigid set of her shoulder blades,
And I swear that she inhaled deeply before asking
"Where's your fruit basket?"
I walked in the house, in the kitchen. Not looking at her
I sat down on one of the chairs, fingering the plastic placemat.
"I lost it."