granata
Kristy Bowen
(dancing girl press & studio, 2024)
This lush and sensuous modern retelling of the Persephone myth juxtaposes her journey to the underworld with that of the girls who were transformed into winged monsters in the wake of her abduction.
from GRANATA
A girl is a grenade,
is a garden full of bramble and weeds,
needy and ambling
through mornings lost in thought.
Your feet were dirty
and your dress was stained, but you were
so hungry you bit the
first thing you saw. The demon's thumb,
then the plumb ripe
of a pomegranate. How you plucked out
the seeds, placed
them on your tongue and swallowed
them completely. You
could not lie to your mother, could not die there,
where the beast
watched and waited. How you hated the hunger,
but it grew and grew.
By nightfall devouring the monster's body
inch by inch. How you
did not flinch when he touched you but,
but leaned closer, your mouth
clean as a god.