Berry Thicket

In the sunless labyrinth of the berry thicket,

ten thousand thorns did kiss my flesh.

I became stuck in their kisses,

stuck in their hands, never to be released

from their fingers again.

I became an old man in that sunlessness;

I forgot my fingers, my feet, the eyes of my face,

the road by which I had once arrived

and the berries for which I had once came.

I am now only a heaving chest

suspended in kisses, listening to the birds

who sing from beyond the thicket, breathing

like gods from soft throats, until one day

they, too, fall silent—

they, too.