Thicket

meltedplastic, "Big Thicket Trip," 2010

Down on those low eroded banks that edge
along the river bottom, bois d’arc and scrub
plums found a patch of blackland dirt deep
enough to throw all in and make a thicket.
For us, it meant we’d pay a blood price—red
thorn scratches and scratch-‘til-you-bleed
chigger bites—to get enough fruit to fill our
jars with garnet-hued jelly. So we paid it and,
hauling pillowcases full of plums no bigger
than quail eggs out over our shoulders, we
were stopped by another’s payment: deer
bones scraped clean of most hide and flesh
at the base of a bois d’arc, the tree straight-
grained, tall, aiming like an arrow to snag a
bit of sunlight, lay it down by the deer’s skull.