- From A Blackberry Rearing
When “keep within the fragrance of your namesake” was no more called from the front stoop I waited in the woodshed beyond the ancestral flora
His otherness came and I erred back but my skirt shuffled and I’s deeprooted: underless
He knuckled and faceforced me ’gainst the woodpile panted at my ear: hoist up the john b’s sail / see how the mainsail sets
“Don’t call for the captain ashore I don’t want to go home”
Whether was a staining or whitewashing: sawdusted / pineneedled / still I made my way back through her bushes
At first catch she briared me: “settle your skirt / I said settle your skirt and goodgodchild / you’ve got outside in your hair” [End Page 21]
Lori Mosley has lived most of her life in New Orleans except for short stints in Nashville, northern Louisiana, and Cleveland, Mississippi. She currently lives and teaches in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where she works for the online literary journal Ostrich Review. Other sections of “A Blackberry Rearing” are out or forthcoming in the Greensboro Review and the Pinch.