Pomegranate

I buy one every year,

a ritual since childhood.

This time I left it

until it browned and cracked,

skin thin, hard,

all moisture out.

Last night I split it.

The seeds lay dark and packed,

flesh gone,

under a slow irregular cramp.

It might be what you said it was,

Persephone’s child up in the light

some way down the future,

but not for me.

For three years now the

heat that drew red from the seed

has continued to fade;

I pulse colder when each moon shows.

At the end

it will be the decay of fruit,

the rot of my own lie

that stops the tide in my blood.