A Thousand Blackberries for Love

We mosey out naked on mother’s milk,

blind, untrammeled, born so briefly gorgeous,

with our wild mouths agape, drunk on sun silk,

green like backwater from mountain gorges.

Desperation surrenders, we ripen,

skinny arms, and we begin to farm love,

like sad faithful babies, planted neck high in

earth that once sat so dark in hunger of

a thousand blackberries. We would leave none,

not a drupelet for the goats or sparrows.

Pretty spines, in time, crumble in the sun,

soused in violet sap, violent prose.

Perish in a most humble love affair,

and you are gorgeous, once and everywhere.