I wrote the poem. And then I rewrote it and made it worse.
I thought time would heal it. Time passed. I did research: Exodus,
midrash, my mother. I rewrote the poem. I ate fistfuls of soft berries. Navy
lips. Purple lips. Juice bursting out of black balloons. I made it worse.
The poem knocked around my mind like unlabeled preserves darkening in the fridge.
Outside the page: tableaus of simple beauty.
Three different trees in one line of sight—plum, pear, palm.
Inside: A hand runs under a faucet, the soap stinging invisible cuts to life.
Have you seen a blackberry bush at the exact moment of its blushing,
when its tight little spheres bleed the green seeds bloody—
have you walked by shoeless on the way to the lake,
the sun lifting the hairs on your cheek,
no matter where you turn, something you love coming after you,
the bush burning in the stripped light,
unripe, alive, surviving—