Berry Picking

by Zinta Aistars



We pick words like berries,
avoiding the green and hard ones,
popping the occasional sun-ripened
sweet one
in our mouths, staining lips
the shock color of berry blood.

I bite one between my teeth.
It snaps, splitting skin,
its meat soft mush on the tongue.

I wrote once of hunger.
For words, for the nourishing life sacrament
they bring, feeding the soul,
kicking the wan spirit
in its near death agony
back into life: a pulse,
then another, blip, and blip,
sudden
surge,
fed with juice and spice
and belief that after death
is new life,
the flavor of sun-ripened berries.