My white porcelain sink is splattered with red, the sheen of fresh blood. So are my cream walls and the grey tiles on the bathroom floor.

The individual halves of the pomegranate lie soft and exposed, their insides under the naked scrutiny of the eye. Each individual cluster, a luscious array of red carbuncles.

Tempting. It cleans away the dull grime that has rendered my poetic eye milk-white. I think of Proserpine and how she could have succumbed to the tempting lushness of each individual gem, nestled in cream. There is a poem or two there.

How she succumbed and lost and gained. But was the loss equivalent to the gain? When we are young, we all have dreams... but the thought goes unfinished.

There is more pressing business. Like how to wash away the damning evidence of the entire scene from my white blouse. And finish devouring the fruit without getting my keyboard too sticky. Or recapturing the occasional vigilante seed that escapes from my occupied hands.