Customs with Pomegranates

 

Customs with Pomegranates

It’s lush, of course, full-seeded blush,
as if fertility to burst,
save for its leather exocrust;
purple-red for pericarp,
its meso white, albedo sponge,
and then pin-pricking close packed crush,
juice sarcotesta, vibrant health.

Its name, disputed parentage,
I first met, teenager in France,
a syrop, grenadine, sweet flush,
and bought for my parent’s delight.
Its bottled glass, secreted deep
within the rucksack, polo neck
wrapped round and round,
no accident.

At custom’s post, as student light,
the backpack delve, no Anglophile,
his bite lip spite as fingers touched
a treasure, buried deep inside.

Accusing sneer, as lifted high,
I saw the triumph melt away,
as innocence and naïve smile
remained, announced my grenadine.
No doubt a migraine, after hours,
a stomach ache, uneasy bowels,
the find announced in colleague wave,
reduced to tantrum with his wife.

 

Stephen Kingsnorth

 

Stephen Kingsnorth, retired to Wales from ministry in the Methodist Church with Parkinson’s Disease, has had pieces published by on-line poetry sites, printed journals and anthologies, most recently Poetry Potion, Parkinson’s Art, The Parliament Literary Journal, Sparks of Calliope.