Ruminant

As the cows savour a salt lick

I submerge in brambles

to chew the cud of lost years.

Muddy skies; a studied silence.

A needle, stark

and Tom-Thumb-tiny,

escapes the haystack:

some mother's face

falling through, her voice

a ready blackberry

dropped on damp earth.

Wordlessly

the ripe fruit gleams, stings sharp;

copper bubbles rupture

tart metal on my lips.

I swallow, reabsorb—