Human Nature

We sit in the damp grass that was pressed down with mud encrusted shoes. My legs stretch into the tall greenery, thin scratches across my shins from thorn bushes. He rests his head against my shoulder as he stretches horizontal to me, feet resting on the top of the four-wheeler tire. My hair tangles in the peeling bark of the apple tree, its droopy branches reaching into the picture of the rolling hills of Upstate. The trees are pillowy green, pastel skies, and cotton ball clouds. A cool breeze lifts my sticky hair off my temples and cools my sunburned cheeks, before dancing up to the leaves in a percussion of sound.

"Purple as the stain blackberries leave"

Purple as the stain blackberries leave
the setting sun inks the clouds deep hues
that play shadows on her pale face
as she titles her head back to tattoo
her mind the color of
her heart