harvest

the wallpaper peels
& beneath it,
pulpy fruit she'd planted
the night of their marriage.
she'd buried it
with a sly smile
beneath the baseboard,
crouched,
whispering lovingly to it
after the wring of a summer day
& with sweat
leaking from her brow -

he puts his hand to it
& it comes back to him
sticky, wet -
it has a heartbeat.
he is afraid it will explode,
or rot.

years have passed
since they split in the middle,
since they,
for the first time,
squeezed one another
& writhed in the juices.
he is,
inside himself,
withering, wrinkling -
can feel his organs
dying on the vine

the day will come,
he realizes,
sitting cross-legged on the bed
in the humid dark,
when he will desperately
eat at the walls,
and then, still not sated,
suck out the wine
of his own heart -