another poem by stephanie bolster

Many Have Written Poems About Blackberries

But few have gotten at the multiplicity of them, how each berry

composes itself of many notes, spherical,

swollen, fragile as a world. A blackberry is the colour of a painful

bruise on the upper arm, some internal organ

as yet unnamed. It is shaped to fit

the tip of the tongue, to be a thimble, a dunce cap

for a small mouse. Sometimes it is home to a secret green worm

seeking safety and the power of surprise. Sometimes it plunks

into a river and takes on water.

Fishes nibble it.

The bushes themselves ramble like a grandmother's sentences,

giving birth to their own sharpness. Picking the berries

must be a tactful conversation

of gloved hands. Otherwise your fingers will bleed

the berries' purple tongue; otherwise thorns

will pierce your own blank skin. Best to be on the safe side,

the outside of the bush. Inside might lurk

nests of yellowjackets; rabid bats; other,

larger hands on the same search.

The flavour is its own reward, like kissing the whole world

at once, rivers, willows, bugs and all, until your swollen

lips tingle. It's like waking up

to discover the language you used to speak

is gibberish, and you have never really

loved. But this does not matter because you have

married this fruit, mellifluous, brutal, and ripe.

Bolster, Stephanie. "Many Have Written Poems About Blackberries" Two Bowls of Milk. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1999.