rotlicker
I press my tongue to the bruise
that purples on your skin,
call it communion.
You laugh, tell me I’m sick,
but still you let me mouth the rot,
lap the sour that blooms.
We share spit like children share candy,
passing tongues back and forth,
sticky-mouthed,
giddy at the ruin of it all.
I say, let me lick the mold off the bread.
I say, let me suck the bruised fruit dry.
I say, if it ferments, let it spill in me.
This is devotion:
not the clean bite of an apple,
but the soft, brown collapse.
Not altar wine,
but the backwash from your throat.
I’ll rot with you,
tongue first,
salting the wound,
honeying your decay.