August

The poem

When the blackberries hang swollen in the woods, in the brambles nobody owns, I spend

all day among the high branches, reaching my ripped arms, thinking

of nothing, cramming the black honey of summer into my mouth; all day my body

accepts what it is. In the dark creeks that run by there is this thick paw of my life darting among

the black bells, the leaves; there is this happy tongue.