Upon eating a Pomegranate in January on the floor, directly after a long day of work

Blood, child of my arm,

coaxes crocuses from my thumbs

and forefingers to greet the white

winter light that falls on to the pillars of cold practicum.

She knows not what she opens, red life

seeps into the quick of her thumbs and draws a map

of celebratory streams over her wrists, Solomon at the slaughter

of the lamb, torn between serving God and protecting

the flesh of his body, his son.

This geographic topography in relief

to the rest of her life draws points to form a path

to the pool in which fish do not swim, nor birds bathe,

but coaxes orchids and bug-eating plants to do what they cannot:

coax life from sandy shoals, shaded forest floors, and renewing swamps.

Bare thighs and toes exposed reap the benefit of these maps.

Cheeks, chin, tongue, lips teeth revel in the bitter-sweet chocolate live-giving blood:

Texhotohuitil, a child after gorging on the Sardinian festival of meat.

Tongue, throat, belly still tingling with the vulnerability of those

round red beads whose heads break while fore-fingers and thumb

delightfully crack open the delicate red skin: a pig-skin football of antioxidants,

an offering to the deity, to the future, to hope-

Its cracking, effusive and plentiful juices, a tight unfolding of the biological creatures without voices,

who elicit their receptiveness to pollination in the smooth unfolding

of stamen and petals, often bringing their own richness of color and pattern: albino,

burgundy, violet: streaks, spots, blotches.

She readies these with her fingers

and forms points of contact with brandied wood slats:

cold feet and pomegranate juice pools,

where touch fulfills our symbiotic and essential connection with the external world;
and espouses, most clearly, what it is to be human.