"Gut"

I sometimes think
I'm just a length of gut
designed to digest
time, to process
the future into the past
here at the point
of the present, to suck
nutrients -- the curve
of a ripened peach,
the whisper of owl's wings,
your lips' heat --
that will sustain life.
If so, I'm not
really efficient, as seeds
pass through to burst
their husks, root
in the residual compost,
and bear their darker
fruit that casts its shadows
across the harvest yet
to come.