Six pomegranate seeds

For dverse
painting by Evelyn de Morgan

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Pomegranate seeds

For the first, he took away the sight of the sun,
filled the sky with dark of no moon, no stars,
where no bird sings, so tree waves in the wind.

For the second, he forced me, because
I was just a woman, he a god, and his desire
was all that mattered in the round of his world.

For the third, he kept me from my home,
the one who loved me, to lie in his bed and listen
to his rutting, feel the coarseness of his hands.

For the fourth, he stole the autumn beauty
of leaf fall, the flocking of south-bound birds,
the gentle touch of the cooling air.

For the fifth, he made the people curse me
when the crops refused to rise and grow,
the earth, winter hard, the summer long.

For the sixth, with the falling leaves,
he made me return to the dark. He has made
the turning seasons a torment, beauty haggard.

He has made me a prisoner of his lust.
Never call it love. And no one called it a crime.
He took beauty, and he gave me hate.