A little girl with a neatly tied bonnet eagerly gathers the strawberries.

She rejoices the growing collection in her pail.

Except the little girl is a young woman now.

She notes each and every flirtatious smile, every vowel shaped

By his capable lips that she once knew so much about.

Now he tends to her again, raises her from a dry sapling.

But as she grows with more zeal, as she forgets her pail,

The more nourishment she requires. 

The fear of drought sits on her shoulder.

The eternal torture of receding roots slices her stem off, toppling her.

Threatening her existence.

The horror

Of going back to picking strawberries.