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Love in A Blackthorn Shrub

Breaking through the blackthorn shrub,
her skirt caught on a branch,
and she fell, dragging me down too.
Entangled, we lay there, laughing
and staring up at the bright, burning red sky above.
Through the dense shrubbery,
I briefly saw a plump of geese soaring high.
"They must’ve heard the gunshot," I thought,
my heart still racing from all that running.

Lying there on my back,
I turned to face her,
to tell her that I’d fallen for her long before
we lay together in a blackthorn shrub;
long before she let me into her father’s house,
before we almost kissed that time last summer,
when we drove all night just to watch that meteor shower.

And I was going to tell her—I really was.
But as I opened my mouth to say it,
I spied the farmer creeping towards us through the shrubbery.
So, I grabbed her arm instead,
and we made another run for it.

- Elijah James
Written: 28/03/2020 Published: 08/03/2025