Hard October Blackberries

Post-season, I picked hard October blackberries
that a scoffing older man predicted would be sour.
Pushing I pushed, urgent and deep inside the bush, I heldholding aside a branch prickly vine like a lover's leg
to pick reach the sweet, long-neglected interior clusters.

Until impatient with the pace,
and hectored by the thorns, I grabbed
indiscriminate handfuls, sacrificing sweetness
for a fuller basket, tart green bites for my breakfast flakes,
green bitter berries that also bite back. oblivious(?)

oOnly too late, typing at a desk in the South, I grieve at the loss of
for to the choicest, tender few dropping that fell through my grasp,
to bounce possibly tender, bouncing onto the mossy soil on the spingy moss.ground.