summer earthquakes

I wish I could still eat fresh fruit

Let excess juice run to my chin drip out
splatter slow roses on my shirt
growing in size with every heave
staining my chest, and like a secondary
wave under soaked cotton, skin contracts,
bumps rise, the aftershock of summer
earthquakes
left me cold as ever
shivering in sunlight.

Is it any wonder that years later my
cracked lips did not need convincing and I
swallowed what you offered, felt it drip
from mouth to chest and fell,
ribs splayed open in the cold sunlight;
heart beating final aftershocks of summer earthquakes.