Singing Loudly

Come, Drink Here

Drink from this circle of night right here,
blind and sudden with currents and waves
like the wellside of the moon.

Put your mouth here where I'm showing you,
against this darkness as full of the taste
of sky as snow water caught early
in clean cave rock.

Easy between your lips again and again,
roll this slight berry possessing
the texture of violet at the root,
having the nature of a solid grain
of clear, flowing river.

Swallow at this narrow crevassing
shadow of faint salt whose ending can never
be savored or known. Tongue this tight,
gathered petal and that other small winding
of rose too, with its glassy sap.

Like here, round and round this warm
nub, a taste a little like butter and sea,
a little like liquid sun left
on dense green mosses after dusk.

Close your eyes, and where I'm placing
your finger, here at this single flume,
like a funnel of iris leaf lithe
and rolled at the stem, suck
morning.

At this swelling, from this soft
cistern, from this heated damp like wet
day on summer grasses, drink first.

Then answer me.

-- Pattiann Rogers