Pomegranate Constellation
Kim Cope Tait (University of Otago)
1.
Heart opens up,
splits like a pomegranate:
sudden unfamiliarity of air.
Red beads of sweetness
burst into light. Pale flesh
prises itself open. Garnet skin
splits only for you, offers itself
to your open mouth.
Seeds are a constellation
of bright nourishment, they
feed the galaxy
of us. We lick our lips
and let our love spill into
the universe. Fruit basket
of sky.
2.
The planet of us looms
overhead, and I am aware
of this unbearable contradiction:
my urge to let everything
fly apart in the centrifuge of fear–
and the terrible need
to press it all together
like flowers between our
bodies. I want you,
I say, I want this. ,
and I mean it
in all the ways.
All
the ways.
3.
Heart opens up
and begins its slow
disintegration.
There is no ground, no
way to reassure myself
that I am still inside of
love. Fruit decomposes,
sends its stench upward—
effluvium of efforts
thwarted, absence of
understanding, the
undeniable distance
between us.
I am broken open–
pieces of me
tumble to the earth
and rot in the soil–grounded
constellation of minerals
after all. Fallen
star.
4.
Heart opens up—
crimson muscle, lulled into
softness and quiet,
shivers itself awake.
It has been here,
burrowed into the ground
like a meteor, fallen
star of our bright belief.
There is your call…
and this is the answer:
Yes and Oh!
Please, I whisper,
but I know there is no
strength in this response.
I tremble, lost
in the wilderness of you.
5.
Heart opens up.
I want this one to be about how we
come together. How we…
but my body vibrates
at a disconcerting rate,
rattles my teeth in my skull.
Actual muscle of my heart
quivers and lurches in its
boney cage, and I lunge
away from self, away from
still. There is no poem for this.
There is iron in my mouth,
sand on my tongue,
a razing of my skin—
it burns, it
flays. I am a gaping wound.
I am in the fucking
void.
6.
Heart opens up
like hands unclenching from
fists. God speaks to us both
and here is a moment
we know: your rabbit breath
close to my ear.
You hold my face in your hands and
speak: I know. I know.
You are my spunk, I say,
and you grin.
It’s a new word for me, but
it is perfect. The heart careens
around the bend of
safe and settled.
I hang on with fingers spread wide
and look to the sky.
Though it is dark—
perilous even—this, what we
have agreed to,
is written in stars.
Kim Cope Tait has a chapbook called Element (2005, Leaping Dog Press) and a full-length collection called Shadow Tongue (2018, Finishing Line Press). She is currently working on an English PhD with a critical/creative thesis at the University of Otago.
