by Alisa Gordaneer
as though transformation is imminent, the pomegranate
spreads news in its juice: from wet red, smeared on the page
like a lover’s goodbye kiss, to dry cold lavender
in an hour or two. it is written, it must be so:
ink is on the page and the seeds are now within, waiting
for earth and another turn
at sky.
yet what good is waiting, when acknowledged wrongs
must push the earth forward? the imminent death
of the dictator weighs. picture an old man
eating each seed of a pomegranate.
slowly eating each last jewel.
then fingering his crepe-skinned neck,
wondering where the noose will fit. how it will feel
when skin turns from red to blue and everything becomes
light.
there’s a reason why executions happen in the lavender
smear of sunrise, the deepening crimson of sunset. we need colours
that transform, that melt like snow into soil
as the earth grows cold before warmth. we need to forget
amid the promise of juice, of flesh opening to begin
the return
of seeds, men, dictators, pomegranates.
we need to forget
before we can see the return
of all blood
to the light.
Alisa Gordaneer is the editor of Monday Magazine, an alternative newsweekly in Victoria, BC, Canada, where she lives and writes on an urban homestead with her family. She is currently working on a novel and a collection of poems.
