I Eat the Moon

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Antonia Kearton is a counsellor & psychotherapist, and occasional poet, based in Strathspey in the Scottish Highlands.  She has been published in several journals including Dust Poetry, Atrium, Northwords Now and Black Nore Review

Skinned

The tomatoes are naked,
five of them, blanched, skinned,
a little indecent, something

not meant to be seen. The knife
is sting-sharp, dissects them
into precise quarters.

The recipe dictates de-seeded:
I push my thumb against the secret flesh,
feeling its moist resistance. It gives,

I scoop. Pulp, warm to the touch,
slick and tender, slips
between my fingers, seeds suspended

in umbilical sacks. I half expect
it to start pulsating, a stranded creature
straining back to its sea.

Detritus now, discarded, it’s swept
into the food waste, where it bleeds
among egg shells and onion skins, pale, lost.

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Antonia Kearton writes, parents and is training as a person-centred counsellor in the Highlands of Scotland. She has been published in various journals including Acumen, Northwords Now and New Writing Scotland, and is intermittently on twitter as @AntoniaKearton.