blood fruit

Katlyn Furlong

this summer I am

all heart no song,

raindrops vibrating a tin roof,

the light that lingers,

the soft hum of electric current,

recurrently resurfacing—

always coming up for air.

I am a mouth full

of a lover’s mouth

full of love

for me;

still Hunger burns

 a sore spot in the soft spot

of my belly &

nothing can mollify her

need for blood.

I crawl through forests foraging

for wild berries

with red stained fingertips

I tell her I did it,

but she knows I could never kill it.

he knows it too &

tells me between bites

he’s moving to San Francisco

for the winter, 

says he could love me from there &

my stomach rumbles

at the thought of canned preserves,

the dying taste of July,

& the fruit we thought could sustain us.