A Taste of Pomegranate (1996)
by Sarah L. M. Dorrance, Vampire/Donor Alliance

Where are the fruits? The trees wait,
impatient, and all around the angry drone
of a thousand desperate wasps: autumn is dying.
O come to me, come to me,
the grasses are sere with wanting,
my feet are cracked by clay
and all around me haunts the memory
of green pastures, a more sealike sky
(you commanded the lambs to gambole for me,
that spring) The river flowed with honey
and the wind was our friend -
why are you not here?

The memory of a missing spring:
we were drunk on moonlight,
we held a Bacchanale
and ran drunk and raging in the collegiate streets.
Our feet pounded the cobblestones,
pursuing wild places.
I remember the ivy. I can still taste
delirium's ferment on my tongue.

I cannot believe that you are gone.

Let the snow fall and cover cracked clay,
it will not reach my buried soul
until the full moon forces time
to reverse its thread. Let it freeze over.
Let me be a sobbing tree,
naked in the wind. Spring is gone,
and with the flowers I.
Never to return. I have eaten my season.

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