A Curious Moon

By Stephen Jackson

Cancer 𖤓 | Gemini ⏾ | Aquarius ↑

Spotting a blanket of blackberries hanging down from a
single cloud, I crave the taste of their sweet black warmth
in my mouth, though a callous Maker has draped it much

too high, situated my feet a cruel distance from my eyes
so, even on tiptoes, I have my doubts, till I spy, near a red
marble sun affixed in the sky, a single leaf pointing down

like the blanket’s silky corner I rubbed ragged as a child,
and stretching, laughing now, I pull its tip toward me, so
close to a cluster of berries it fairly warms me, and then

reaching, barely, a second leaf, as blood-red thorns shriek
stop! at me, I curse having only one other hand to pluck,
but so purple-fat and ripe they are, one easily tumbles off,

and the jagged leaves, released, swing up even more aloft,
as I slowly ease myself back down to my normal measure
where I pop that berried treasure in my mouth, to taste its

flowery-warm juice, its spell cast anew upon me, for this
is an absolute truth: ingrained in those youthful summers,
cradled in the heat—I was, and I remain—that feral child.

Stephen Jackson is an elder working-class writer who lives in the Pacific Northwest. When not reading or writing, you’ll find him communing with nature or engaged in conversation with a fellow human. Poems appear in Allium, A Journal of Poetry & Prose, The Branches: A Journal of Literature and Philosophy, fourteen poems, Prairie Fire, and the Washington State Queer Poetry Anthology. Read more at stephen-jackson.com and get updates at @fortyoddcrows.bsky.social.