Pomegranate

Poem by Haley Davis

glossy and mottled skin,

her calicoed exterior speaks story of the sun, intangible in its heat,

and interior tells of the moon, heavy and corporeal.

the brindled husk requires a surgeon’s blade 

and a woman’s precision

to make an opening

just wide enough

for her

fingers

to split

carmine fruit

in two glistening halves.

the collection begins now, a digging, 

the excavation of her pomegranate hips.

an extraction—no, an elicitation of delicate diamonds,

translucent reds and pinks with fibrous center.

tools of tongue and hand exchange duty

rolling the first rubied pearl and

scavenging for more.

from holiness comes hunger.

panning for blushed gold with cupped palms

and forward lips,

tempting out, prying through, traveling in

to the tang of the arils—giving into them.

juice runs down jaw and tracks jugular.

the end of emptiness, 

beginning of fullness

of fullness

of fullness

of fullness

and sated shell.

Haley Davis is a poet and occasional writer of other things from Arizona. Her writing concerns gender, death, flowers, and how awesome and beautiful it is to be queer. Some of this work can be found at The Tunnels and in Arizona’s Best Emerging Poets: An Anthology. Her Instagram is @loglady.official.