Finding a Split Pod
The sunlit gold of its concavity
gleamed treasure to me
in the smoothly paved alley
behind a high-rise and two motels.
I thought jewelry case.
It could have slipped out
of Room 7 with the two lovers
who went through it like they did
the sheets and the towels,
the sealed cups and the soap.
The treasure humbled in my hand:
one half of a split pod,
feather canoe, a seed vessel
sent forth to find earth
by the mother vine
up against a white wall.
The pod cradled its gold
with a shell as carved
and wrinkled as a walnut.
I looked for the other half
and there it was, but why
do that? And you know
I married the two and they fit.
So, here’s their story. They began
as one and grew together.
There was falling and a force
that wrenched them in two,
but their splitting up,
as unfavorable as that sounds
from a narrative standpoint,
did expect a birth.
If he and I ever began
somewhere as one it makes sense
that we’d have no memory of it,
no awareness of each other
because no other
would have existed then.
In his embrace I am sealed.
We fasten to each other
with eyes, lips, bellies.
When we pull away
it may be for a brief
or the longest while
but there it is: the wide open space.
What rattles between us
will break out, get some air,
find other ways in.
*
M. Nasorri Pavone’s poetry has appeared in River Styx, One, b o d y, Sycamore Review, New Letters, The Cortland Review, The Citron Review, Innisfree, Rhino, DMQ Review, Pirene’s Fountain, I-70 Review and others. She’s been anthologized in Beyond the Lyric Moment (Tebot Bach, 2014), and has been nominated for Best of the Net and twice for a Pushcart Prize.
