Route 7 Review | Page 47

Untamed Sweetness By Nancy Jentsch Black raspberries ripen wild at creek’s edge my eyes close, lips tingle to memories of brimming backyard bushes. These untended berry-gems hide tiny behind stickers beyond reach. I bend the canes to mine the ready flesh lest deer or songbirds steal the pear-fed coyote plunder. At days end, red-lipped, I leave a fruit or two of untamed sweetness like words that stray from verses and still are pearls. Nancy Jentsch has taught German and Spanish at Northern Kentucky University for over 30 years. She has published numerous scholarly articles and her short fiction and poetry have appeared in journals such as The Journal of Kentucky Studies, the Aurorean, Postcard Poems and Prose and The Whistling Fire.years.