Communion

Stepping stone on stone
through her garden’s gate, Margaret
finds us with her promises to spray
for worms in the fall, her fingers
thimbling deep into the wine of cherries
in the bowl she’s brought to share, her silver
hair stitched with coral shells from the chestnut
tree, while my son nurses curled at my
breast, in one mystic inhale of take,
eat and do this in remembrance
of the afternoon beneath the lyric
blossoms of the chestnut tree where bees
drink their own sweet nectar from the stamen’s
cup, and my son, this child who’s seen
the underside of me, like a moonflower
knowing all there is to know of night,
fingers out with hands like startled stars,
to touch the ruby stain in his great
grandmother’s palm, still clinging
to the cream of my body with his soft
mouth, and in this giving
and receiving, there is water
into wine.