parable to keep the blackberries out of your skin
by Riley Ann Peterson
if you hear the seeds
scattershoot down the hall
my grandma told me
to pray for pesticide
to surround your head
& heart. if you see
your friends folded
to the floor, sap split
& spreading red
my father told me
to steal the ammunition
of sight and sound
& ignore the berries
blooming from bodies.
ignore the splatter & squelch
below your feet. if you
want to escape the gardener
my mother told me
to hope for a kinder-
garden, a world without
weeds, to speak in tongues
to our creator &
to ignore the blackberry
already breaking through you.