Tamara Madison

Tamara Madison is the author of the chapbooks “The Belly Remembers” (Pearl Editions) and “Along the Fault Line” (Picture Show Press), and three full-length volumes of poetry, “Wild Domestic”, “Moraine” (Pearl Editions) and “Morpheus Dips His Oar” (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions). Her work has appeared in Chiron Review, Your Daily Poem, the Writer’s Almanac, Sheila-Na-Gig, Worcester Review and many other publications. She is a swimmer and a dog lover. More about Tamara can be found at tamaramadisonpoetry.com.

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Ripening

She wouldn’t even try
the blackberries we found
growing hot and juicy
beside the train tracks
near the campground.
She was eight, and only
ate food that was white
or chocolate.

Ten years later we are guests
at a winery. Though the grapes
are spoken for, blackberries
spill over trellises by the reservoir
and along the driveway.
Early mornings I spy deer,
tender and shy in their large
and powerful bodies,
nibbling at the berries.

My child is vegan now,
which for her is mostly about
what she doesn’t eat, but hunger
has opened her mind a crack.
On the morning we leave,
I watch her gathering black fruit
into her mouth, her dancer’s body
pressing against the canes—
strong, agile, like a deer
unaware of her power.