Moonlight on Haws

by Charlotte F. Otten

Known all summer-long for its grunge,
the river lights up shabby shores
with glistening clusters in Fall.

Moonlight beguiles with her brightness
showing hawthorns in dazzles of red,
concealing thorns sharp as wolf ’s teeth.

Unheeding, I reach for ripe fruit,
moonlight’s gift to an ungloved Shakespearean
who disregards Edgar’s “sharp thorns”

while memory runs thick with haw jelly
and hawthorns’ red blood stains the fingers,
moonlight sticking to thumbs.