by Kylie McQuarrie
I think of pomegranates, my dad slitting their thick skin into a bowl of tap water and prying out the ruby seeds. “Water cleans up the mess,” he says. “They come out easier.” The pith gives up the gems, strips away like skin. My diagnosis dangles from the fridge and I shuck seeds the way he taught me. My last knife carves the fruit’s strange neck.
