I have nothing to say about bramble
for it means nothing to me.
Let’s talk about
vines, curved thorns, and bloody dotted lines
ripped skin and torn knuckle bones;
The cavernous mound on the side of the road
where Uncle George hides from the German patrol
and the blast he gives himself in the chest
safe now tugging the gun to make it home.
Let’s talk about
the wails, the laments, the crown of lilies on his head,
the unfillable void of a vios never had
the stones dad and I lovingly render into a wall
then surrender to the vines on leaving home.
How factory drill-press beat and machine arm swing
assault and scar; then, too, grace him with hymn.
How, forever the archetypal man, he makes his way back,
having never left in his heart, takes the scythe, reclaims the land.
Let’s talk about
berries red and black, tangy reluctant tokens proffered in lieu
of the pruning-cleaver’s slashing the offending shoots
fallow years donning the red and white smocks of corner pizzerias
urbanites impounded nightly with memories and new world fears
tiller and teller of events, family heights and lows
cantor of Passion Mysteries and Seven Sacraments.
Let’s talk about
rosebush mounds swelling, reaching, throwing roots
while only now, by chance, I learn this new word, “bramble.”
How now a shell of a man I brandish pruning shears
patrolling my half-acre snipping the offending spears
this my pricking constant nemesis through the years
this definer and diviner of the rest of my years.
-Published in Quiddity Literary Journal Vol 6 No. 2
