Sneaky little devils.
They hide in the shadows in their black skins
and squeeze your mouth if they're picked before they're ready.
And the only way to know if they're ready is if they burst and bleed all over you when you pluck them.
Today I picked 19 blackberries off a branch a foot long.
19 heavy-hanging worlds
that pulled that one foot of a branch down to the earth.
Bees skipped from one to the next.
I left blackberry-blood prints on the leaves.
