Briar Patch by Katherine Duffy

 

You’d like to help     honestly you would

but you’re caught in the sprawl and tumble of your very own

briar patch.

 

Winter is coming or something

twilight maybe darkness maybe     a shadowy reach

sometimes piercing sometimes

crosshatched.

 

Fear among others is a briar

the ambition of brambles is deep     they’d rather have your blood than

let you have their fruit.

 

You can remember being a child

before all of this

sun on an ivory dress before the marks were made     before

the grey areas.

 

Now you’re very still.

You’d like to help but there are thorns you’d     really like

to help but you have your own

small points of sweetness to defend.

 

 

Katherine Duffy's most recent publication is Talking the Owl Away, which was published by Templar Poetry in 2018, having won their Iota Shot Pamphlet Award. Two previous collections were published by Dedalus Press. Website: www.kateduv.com 

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