Before the fall

Of all the senses, they say that smell is most closely tied to memory; like Proust with his madeleines; like blackberries in July, in the park where my mother watched with patient indulgence, as my brother and I propelled our small bodies down the shallow hill in riotous limbs and giggles; and in the waning heat of early evening, picked blackberries for pie in the shade of the bay trees; fingers dyed purple with sugary blood and bellies filled on stolen ripe flesh. Our heads grown sweetly heavy with the feat of a day well met. We didn't know yet of the things that would break us. Only vines, pregnant with sun-warmed fruit; my father's hand around mine. In the glow of golden hour, we thought the day immortal.