handsy brambles have copped their share of scratches –

shallow
and gouges?

slow
—if we’d resented less the future moldering mess
would we have carried home your harvest, while
you limped along beside?—was it that day you learned
the fearful tempo of shame?—what if it all rests
on one moment,
as thin as a scratch, cast of characters still new as a berry
green on the vine?—

and considered
on each of our gatherer flesh

—I am not better than this one moment, nor were any
of us worse than our best—would it have helped to
know that?—before the first legit prescription?—before
unintended last?—

it goes so fast

sometimes?
blackberries

and sometimes still?
a story you stopped telling
because ghost stories aren’t paced
for laughs