Pomegranate

Red seeds piled in plastic bowl—
I wonder how this fruit could so tempt
a girl. When I first read how Persephone fell
for it, I had never seen or tasted one.
I imagined something bigger,
substantial, sweet.

There’s a binful at the store, tumbled,
lumpish; I take one home, open it,
separate flesh from seed, meditate on myth
and moral. I see that I too could chain myself
for the sake of something fleeting,
gleaming, small.