Rubies to catch the night
12/17/2006 12:44 p.m.

Rubies to catch the night

Pass them around one by one pomegranate rubies
freshly-bought.
     Offer them dutifully to everyone but
     mostly savor them alone from bowl to tongue.

With the kitchen all to myself,
at the refrigerator door,
I pluck the red lute strings
slip one by one to my mouth:
these opposites of communion wafers

the seeds throb down the throat -
like taxis pumping past the bus stop and fish shop -
of this body i inhabit.