The sun didn’t want

to watch. It used all the clouds

in the sky as hands.

I tried to stare. No

piece of stray light would return

my eye contact. Not

even my mother.

She held me by the wrist and

only looked ahead.

The sun didn’t look

at us. Only the mountains.

I knew because the

looming stone seemed to

glow. My mother noticed too.

She sat me down and

asked me if I thought

it was beautiful. I did

not give an answer.

She told me to talk

about it, but to count up

to seventeen and

then stop. She didn’t

say how to divide the lines.

She was too busy

cutting other things,

fruit for our lunch together.

She wasn’t happy.

It was on her face,

and after all the screaming

she fell asleep on

the ground, like a child.

We were the same, really. I

was afraid to move.

When her face was still,

I noticed her nose, how it

was bent out of shape.

It wasn’t like mine,

but she was sure that I would

bend too, nose and all.

She asked me if I

thought it wouldn’t be me in

the end, on the ground.

The sun didn’t want

to answer. Past my mother,

the cold dirt shriveled.

She had missed one fruit.

I still think of it now, a              

ripe pomegranate.

I had to wonder

if a pomegranate knows

how a body breaks.

How, cut,

its children

will bleed.