AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Rubus fruticosus, whose title is the Latin name for the shrubby blackberry plant, belongs to a series of poems dealing with invasive plant species common to the Southeast. I began writing this as a single rime couée stanza then pared the form down to something cellpoem-sized.

BIO:

Amy Arthur's work has appeared in the Birmingham Poetry Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, and Mead Magazine. She currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland, where she is pursuing an MFA in poetry at Johns Hopkins University.