when I was eight,
I would pick blackberries
and eat them straight from the bush,

their purple juice would
stained my lips with
childhood joy and
wonder,

now I'm the wrong side
of thirty, and melt those
blackberries into
jam,

as if I am seventy

there is no joy left
in me, these days

only a weary
tiredness that aches
with longing for

what was,

those blackberry bushes
and purple fingers,

now fraught with
frailty

as I boil jam,
playing it like
a snake charmer

so as not to
spoil my mixture

(as I have spoilt
my life)

of blackberries
and regret