I am
crushed
in the depths
of the winepress,
skin-split and oozing,
the best of the season’s fruit.
I am
much
trodden into
little,
four quarts.

Pour me out
as a free-will offering,
a sacrifice of faith.

I am
a wild olive vine,
sprung from flinty soil,
grafted into growth
I had nothing to do with.
Seven years
to firstfruits,
then:
bough-beaten, berry-gleaned,
the mill is a stone rolled,
both to crush
and to resurrect.
This oil press,
my gethsemane.

Pour me out
unendingly
like the jar of the widow.

I am
an alabastron
of spikenard–
your covenant of peace poured
on me,
poured back on you.
Broken seal, beheaded spout,
the anointing
of a husband,
the preparation
for burial
of all the loves I have kept
in my Samaria.

Pour me out
in consecration
of your desire,
in consummation
of your broken-rib-
and-poured-out-blood,
a free-will offering of love.