Coming back to the open pomegranate

Coming back to the ripe and open pomegranate,
What wonder is it that Persephone endures
Her six winter moons under Hades’ stern eye?
The fresh juice-fountain of this jagged slice
Invades, assaults my sense of taste and smell,
Invites the counter-attack of my lips and tongue,
Instils in me its zest, instils a sweet blindness,
Inveigles me by lust, inveigles me by wantonness.
What a punishment for my daring to eat this
Is the strain on my tongue-roots dipping deep,
Probing the soft, stringy pith for more sweetness,
Digging hard at one last, stubborn ruby-seed!
Is the fruit driven to the same ecstasy as I am?
Does the fruit know love, does it crave pleasure
From my tongue, as I crave the giving, the taking?
I lick its walls for every drop of moist nectar,
Every last atom of pinkness, sacrificing sun,
Sacrificing summer, sacrificing springtime again,
Sinning, sucking, slavering, searching the fruit
To its utmost, to the exhaustion of that sweetness,
To the excessive deserving of hell’s dark caverns,
To never seeing daylight again. Oh for more!
More fruit, more pomegranate, I desire you ever,
Coming, coming once again to pomegranate,
To that always-opening, ripe love-grenade,
Coming back to hell, or maybe to Elysian bliss,
For a ripe and open, kissable pomegranate!