Pomegranate Seeds

by Lo Riddell

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Pomegranate Seeds

When I enter the kitchen
on Wednesdays, I find them
there, at the counter,
carefully picking out pomegranate

seeds and dropping them
into a bowl of water
to be baptized or maybe sanitized –
either way, there’s a cleansing.

This is the way they always
do it, so delicate, like playing
with fruit some game
of they love me, they love me not.

I watch from the doorway
with hands at my side
as they keep theirs busy, plucking
in ones and sometimes threes,

like creating some harmony I feel
I should know by now.
The bowl of water is a pool –
no – a scrying tool,

which they use to practice
their own form of divination
where all of the answers
come up blushing.

They drain the water
and displace the seeds
from the bowl to a cup
that they hold out to me

like an offering dish.
I crush the seeds between my lips
and the answer spills out like juice:
They love me, they love me, they love me.

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Lo Riddell is a lesbian writer from southern Ohio, currently based in New England. She received her BFA in Creative Writing from Bowling Green State University in 2022, and now spends her free time writing poetry, prose, zines, and essays on pop culture. You can find her, along with her collection of vintage clothing, on Instagram at @vintagelouisa, or at her writing website, loriddell.com.

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