Mulberry tree by Carrie Magness Radna

I thought these were blackberries

for years—my neighbor’s tree

grew many berries; staining

our lips & hands every summer

was a great pastime, &

we hid under the many branches,

every time we played Hide & Seek.

Set for Saturdays, we saved everything.

I saved the memory of my first kiss & many other secrets

under the shaded leafy canopy. The neighborhood dogs

lick their balls there too. We tossed sticks & Nerf balls away

from the tree’s mighty trunk; we took the cut branches for defense,

& made homemade temporary belts, welting our skin with rashes & juice.

The tiny berries didn’t satisfy our great hunger,

they were mostly junk—we had to get rid

of the stems before we sucked the berries dry;

thanks to our neighbor we weren’t poisoned.

We needed a least a thousand berries

to make an ounce of jam,

which was impossible to do.

The berries were not ripe—we didn’t care.

I thought they were blackberries until I moved East

& I saw the thickest, sweetest & blackest berries I’ve ever seen—

eating them with a man I would later marry, whose mother had trimmed

the thorns from the bushes from their backyard—delicious!

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Carrie Magness Radna is a cataloger, a singer and a poet who loves travelling. Her poems have been published in Muddy River Poetry Review, Poetry Super Highway, Alien Buddha Press, Cajun Mutt Press, Jerry Jazz Musician and First Literary Review-East, et al. Her latest book, In the blue hour (Nirala Publications) was published in February 2021. Born in Norman, Oklahoma, she lives with her husband in New York City.