Catherine Palmer (Epsom Girls Grammar School, Auckland)
The Hearts on the Vines
The hearts on the vines smile, the white hearts
bloodless as albino babies.
They pump nothing.
A man
(silent opening of spiracles,
membrane primed to snap)
finds a deep and heady music
between layers of lipid.
A man
is masticated.
And the white hearts smile:
truncated sadness. They know
where the path leads, trees leaning in anticipation
and proteinaceous like silk.
They bare flaxen teeth.
A woman's fingers
(swelling like amoebae under milk sheen,
skin of a tough and wizened greed)
encircle a molten core.
She listens rapturous; it beats for her alone.
A woman
is consumed.
The hearts on the vines smile.
They are cold.
