Fruit of the Soul

Meet me at the orchard, I have a gift for you.
A lovely red fruit, with lovely red skin, and lovely red bones, too.
My pomegranate love will swell with the spring.

I offer up, palms out, saying eat
Come, devour the heart of your beloved,
Deliciously and perniciously tart as those six grand seeds.
Fruit’s blood, my blood, so staining and sweet.
Flesh and bone. Never satiated, never full.

And with your bare hands
I’ll let you tear apart my pomegranate heart.
Let love, so sweet and red, colour your ebony skin,
creep under your nails, tendrils clinging onto your wrists.
Tear apart my skin, my love, but please do it gently.

Feel the weight of each marble on your guilty fingertip.
Savour it as each jewelled piece bursts on your tongue. Savour it
intensely – it’s my bittersweet love;
violently – feel the click! clack! of seed and enamel;
unabashedly – let my love stain clothes, soil, skin.

Meet me at the orchard: this gift is yours to keep.
Bleed, bleed, my pomegranate love
which turns bitter with the slipping away of the spring.