the berry takes the shape of the bloom originated as a gesture towards optimism after loss and pain, difficulty and fear. It began as a linear narrative, offering a window into one trans person’s life after they felt contented and secure. But in the end these poems, which capture particular moments in time, may recur in any given present: sometimes what surfaces is anxiety or anger, sometimes love or eagerness. Some poems bear witness; others hold grudges or shake free of them. Together, they entwine around enmeshed experiences of gender, family, trans pregnancy, abuse, fear, and becoming.

Before blueberries grow, they grow a bloom that looks like a proto berry. The berry then takes the shape of the bloom that came before it. The berry displaces the bloom that came before it … My mother bloomed and then I was a wave or a skateboard or a foraging deer. My mother bloomed and I did not displace her in the right way. Did I berry?