Revision with Blueberries
by E. Thomas Jones
Whitetails totter between bushes when no one
watches, tonguing twilight knots of berries
into their mouths. Though the freezer is so full
of berries there is room for little else, Mama
goes & piles blue handfuls into a colander,
complaining all the while of each shoot’s sparsity,
& still returns with enough to fill another
gallon Ziploc. Afternoons, she cooks
berries down in lemon & sugar. She prefers
tartness, nothing too sweet. I showed her
a draft of this poem in which she opened
her palm to a doe & fed her. One of the few
that wants me to write the truth, she called
this version unlikely. Mama scrapes the pan
with a wooden spoon while I watch over her
shoulder, the treacly mixture muddled purple.
back to University & College Poetry Prizes