Hava, I love every variation of what they call you, but
\nI use your Farsi name for the purposes of this letter, Hava,
\nbefore my teeth came in, my mother held a pomegranate
\nto my mouth, to rub my tender gums to comfort against
\nthick bitter skin, she taught me that some foods relieve you
\nbetter than milk, Hava, she must have learned this from the land
\nof its origin, in Iran today and always before they are worshipped,
\nentire festivals dedicated to them, they guard our tables
\nlike scarlet suns on the longest night of the year, Hava,
\nI have seen them growing on trees and backyard shrubs,
\nsketch either side of long roads and highways, in holy awe
\neach time, like every sighting was a hallowed space, or
\na soundless call that a prayer must be offered, and it isn\u2019t just us,
\nHava, Queen Hatshepsut\u2019s butler was buried with one, whole
\nand uncovered in three millennia, Bronze Age findings,
\ncuneiform records, in Mary\u2019s hands in Renaissance paintings\u2014
\nits bulbous orb and pronged crown, a godly token, Hava,
\nin so many lands a symbol of something, prosperity, abundance,
\nfertility of course; that fall, Hava, when the illness evolved,
\nboxes full of them arrived to the door I kept closed, and
\nall I could do that season, Hava, was take one and cleave its tiara,
\nknife its center halfway before I split the rest with my hands,
\nexhaling with the sound of its perfect rip, so wet and generous,
\nI swayed back and forth on the floor as I removed in meditation
\nthe arils from its yellowed membrane, like a vacant carton of eggs,
\nthe impression of what was taken remained; I could not eat
\nduring the sickness, Hava, but I could press each purple pill
\nwith my tongue better than twenty milligrams, and at no other time
\nwas each breath more measured than between spoonfuls;
\nsometimes I would deseed for hours until a dripping ruby
\nmountain towered in the salad bowl, and then ladle the sour pearls
\nwith my palms, Hava, what is it about pomegranate that is so curative,
\nmaybe there is an antidotal joy in breaking a fruit and not expelling
\nits seeds for waste, maybe there is praise for breaking a fruit and
\nletting it bleed its juice across your wrists, Hava, in scriptures
\nthey are always mentioned, proof that there is god; from heaven
\nto my New York kitchen, they spill and stain beautifully my arms
\ndug deep into its grains; you must have panicked, distraught
\nwhen exile was decreed, but Hava, Hawwah, Eve:
\nyou still managed to slip one, bring it with you, like you knew
\nthe women to come would need something to sink their teeth
\ninto when a man turns them in, and this time,
\ngod knew to look the other way and forgive the sin<\/p>\n
Hava, I love every variation of what they call you, but I use your Farsi name for the purposes of this letter, Hava, before my teeth came in, my mother held a pomegranate to my mouth, to rub my tender gums to comfort against thick bitter skin, she taught me that some foods relieve you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1425,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[53],"tags":[25],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-3Ai","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13782"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1425"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13782"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13984,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13782\/revisions\/13984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}