sleep of the apples
under the trees that bore them
sweet smell of decay
 
I still dream of them
the luminous ones
 
the few short weeks I
carried each, one for seven,
the other for six
 
once I wondered how
deadness can ripen
 
like a fruit but then
I understood and then how
I wished I didn’t
 
I am ripening
again, I am not
 
a pomegranate,
the fruit that some say grew on
the tree of knowledge
 
Persephone’s fall
might she have known what
 
she was doing when
she ate those six or seven
seeds, their sweet redness
 
bound up tightly in
bitter white membranes
 
I am ripening
but I do not know for how long
I do not know if
 
it’s winter inside
me or if it’s spring