Mouths

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We’ve left your mother to sleep alone,
no mouth or hand at breast, 
free to dream and sleep alone 

this early Sunday and walk you 
into the mouth of the woods 
for a taste of wild plum. 

I skin the fruit with my teeth 
and take the freshly plucked flesh 
from my mouth, unboiled and solid 

and place the yellow meat 
on your pilgrim’s tongue, 
lips closing clean as a wound. 

You’re finally feeding him, your mother would say.
Yesterday she asked, “Are your hands 
dry enough to open a bottle of plums?” 

No, I confessed, hands to the wrist 
in the sink, and you stayed hungry 
until my shaving was done. 

But not today. Today I’ll 
walk you, naked as Adam, 
through the jaws of the woods 
breaking our fast on lost fruit trees.