CHERRY

I heard the cry of pain,

then changed slowly, pathologically,

that muffled plea

neither complaint nor fantasy,

the pain direct, immediate,

yet powerless to enter—

weak, sporadic, mute.

I dared not plunge my hand deep

to grasp the bloody ghost.

My eyes fixed helpless on pure lies.

I turned my face to mourn,

pretending like us all

that absence could play innocent.

Still this pain, this emptiness before me.

Today I ate a cherry,

suddenly recalling my mother,

how she’d patiently endure, then exhale.

Once she placed in my mouth a candied cherry

I slowly swallowed, a honeyed,

sweet-red corpse, its scarlet

surging like blood in a hypo,

or desire’s vermilion fading

from her cheeks—that bewitching taste.