Katie Hartsock
Deseeding the Pomegranate, I Think of You
You would have liked the mechanics, the care
it takes to spring the arils out
of their clustered vaults, in rows as neat
as a civilization, or a dream
of one. I wonder if you ate them
stationed in Casablanca, or
on leave in Pompeii. The black and white
photos you showed me of the columns
still supporting nothing there
taught me the place existed beyond
my textbooks. I who didn’t even
comprehend that pomegranates
were real until I was in high school.
That name, and its underworldly seeds
that did not come in cans. When I finally
walked those streets, indented with
the ruts Pompeiian wagons tracked,
I helped an old man who was not you
walk his bad legs most of the way
the tour took us. So what I saw
was our feet, mainly, making sure
he didn’t trip on the famously
uneven surfaces. How Roman,
I thought, the thick white hair of him,
how satisfied, seeing it all,
escorted by a woman who’s arrived
at a place she’s longed for, only to
accommodate, to compromise.
The leathery skin is tough to cut
but the flesh pulls right apart. I love
the sweet crunch of this pithy treat,
red as the poppies I saw floating
between tombs in the cemetery
which was itself buried by lava
and ash. Maybe you stopped to laugh
a little ruefully like I did
walking by. It was near there
I ditched the old man and the tour
to stand alone for a moment in
the Villa of the Mysteries.
Katie Hartsock is the author of Bed of Impatiens (Able Muse Press, 2016), a finalist for the 2017 Ohioana Award in poetry. Her work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Ecotone, Exchanges, Massachusetts Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Southwest Review, and The Wallace Stevens Journal, among others. She holds a MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in Comparative Literary Studies from Northwestern University. She is an assistant professor of English at Oakland University in Michigan.
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