Pomegranate
Abdul carries one rummân down a busy, tree-lined boulevard.
He peels back it’s skin; revealing the pinkish-red seeds
beneath.
The familiar seems distant on his tongue as he bites into the
fruit,
and savors another time, another place. Another life.
This road is different than that of home. A road without jitneys
rolling through
dust clouds between neighboring villages. One without open-air
markets
alive with meats, herbs, spices: sweat. Where pomegranates are
sold
by merchants in small, vibrantly-colored stalls.
Gun powder.
I brush by on our narrow path, and smell Kabul on his clothes.
His eyes stare downward at the pomegranate: torn open by his
teeth; bleeding. His stride slowed with the loneliness of a
world he will never know again.
This sidewalk never leads him home.
Korliss Sewer has been published in The Sheltered Poet,
The Orange Room Review, BlazeVOX, Sunken Lines and soon
to be published in Gutter Eloquence. She is
an English Literature graduate from the
University of Washington, and loves to sip wine while
watching the world go by.
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