Melissa Prunty Kemp

A weed that grows twenty feet tall.  The first to lead in spring and to have babies covered in thorns.  Fertile seeds of life protected from pilfering critters lie in wait for their escape from forest floor to sun’s sky.  What must to be like to be a burr?  To battle periodically with wide alien feet that crush protective shells?  To have your generations ripped from their wombs too soon? Such an offense is met with revenge—involuntary piercing of naked soles as hard as leather, running over rock and thistle.  No blackberry thorn can compare to such exquisite pain.  The battle seems won, a lopsided skirmish from which a burr or bare foot sole should shrink.  Then along come small children’s feet that lacerate easy like slaughtered hogs.  On the first few steps they bleed.  For thirty miles they bleed and swell and leave a blood trail until the mother of murdered children—the sweet gum—is tapped, her healing sap soothing shredded feet.