Harvest

Just when you’ve finally grown sure hanging,
the vine drops you full of juice, your deepest hue.

Or else, a hand you’ve no eyes to see tests your edges
firm, tender, perfect and plucks. Everything moves

around your disorientation, your unleashed shape.
You reach for what held you, what you held safe.

The architecture is gone.

Next you lose your green head, your yellow core,
your bottom edge. When you think it can get no worse,

the plunge into searing heat. Skin flays open
at your neck. In a flash, you are out, embraced

by strange cool, bumping into peers, everyone weeping.
Hands gently peel back your skin, a sound sighs

surprised pleasure in your silken flesh, nerves a net
holding seeds. Sheer exposure. The air receives

your glistening. Listen to the silence of your new body,
tucked into a pocket window, saved for some future

feast in which every living being is your guest.

2011