We Need to Talk

 

To be inside this conversation
is to step through a threshold

of wilderness, no horizon in sight,

across a boundary so antiquated

 

its rusty barbs break off across our shins.
The thickets and thorny patches

 

along the path entice us

with their bright ripe berries

 

inviting our bare hands into
the clutches of teeth and grief and reason.

 

We try to sneak in, are stung, and

retract. But the laws of foraging

 

dictate that the choice of any crop

lurks beneath its leaves.

 

Listen, my love: lacerations heal

but left unharvested, fruit rots on the vine.