How to eat cherries

In a summer garden

languidly.

Piled in a blue bowl, sun

polishing their gloss;

the name’s soft consonants

springs water in your mouth.

Don’t hold it by the stem

and slice away the flesh with your front teeth.

Put one in your mouth and feel

cool roundness on your tongue,

then bite the skin, bruised flesh,

teeth touching a knot of bone

and juice, trickling like dark blood

in the corner of your mouth.