berry madrigal
backyard blackberry advantage with birdsong
reserves a summer pie within thorny reach
or gully cover for blue tarps and beige tents
carried bird shit with tiny seeds floods the slope
summer bowl of cold milk berries and sugar
holds in childhood dark berry stained hands
with small red spots where thorns prick
mounds ramble around freight train switch yards
competing for smoke and particle granite flecks
beige packed cracked dirt holds the roots
innocent leaves quiver on sly stems in the wind
Michael Rerick lives and teaches in Portland, OR. Work recently appears or is forthcoming at Action, Spectacle, BlazeVOX, Brief Wilderness, Cola Literary Review, Ginosko Literary Journal, Indefinite Space, Marsh Hawk Review, The Main Street Mag, The Headlight Review, The New Absurdist, and Word For/Word. He is also the author of In Ways Impossible to Fold, morefrom, The Kingdom of Blizzards, The Switch Yards, and X-Ray.