Learning to Eat by Sasha Pimentel Chacon

Learning to Eat

A pomegranate
is opened like this:
gutted like a fish,
its entrails glow.

Spill out the millions

of seeds who crouch
and hurt like your mother—
Suck them dry

and your tongue
will grow small
as you learn to shrink

before children, waving your hands
before their glossy eyes

This is the taste
of memory, sweet pluck of
death. Later, teach them
to eat as you have, the broken

fruit flesh of your own
body, its hard growths tart
in your mouth, nervous and rising.

“Learning to Eat” is the opening poem of Sasha Pimentel Chacon’s American Book Award winning debut Insides She Swallowed.