A Pumpkin

With effort I get the knife in, & with
a little hinging of the wrist, I split
the fruit along a shallow runnel
where its form suggests it wants to split.
It exposes its creamy interior.
Its flesh, like all flesh, is a distraction;
it wraps around an orange mess
of filaments. I scoop this out, I pull
each pale seed from its entanglement.
& because I want a violence
more intimate, I do this with my hands
& feel its wet potential turn to pulp
beneath my nails. By now the fruit
is more the absence of itself:
an orange cup enclosing what it’s lost.
There are many things I should confess.
To begin with: this vicious sympathy,
this want (& inability) to know
how it feels to hold a space
at the centre oneself, & have it filled;
to bend the self around the presence
of something not-quite-other, not-quite-I;
to give the body up as nourishment.
I cut the pumpkin’s two bright domes
to crescent moons. I do this in the hope
that when the resurrection comes,
everything I have subjected thus
will be returned inviolate
& I’ll be nothing & forgiven.