Selfie with Pomona: The Goddess of Abundance

Alexandra Teague

Pulitzer Fountain, New York City

She has all the advantage. Two sculptors

for her single body. Bronze prepossession. Bare arms

muscled as if she plucked each apple in her basket,

then scythed the reeds to weave the basket—heaping on peaches

and pearls of snow. What seasons?

What death? She’s seamless as light. She doesn’t even need

the fountain she’s standing on—its layercaked Christmas trees

or summer spritzing. She’s a one-woman waterfall

of whatever. Could toss the basket on my head—see

how she leans—then fill another. She could mint money

out of bird shit. Go everywhere in mink coats

and the minks still living. What climate change? What protests?

She doesn’t even need breath in her body. She’s her own

Roman empire. The champagne porch of the Plaza

glassed-in now behind her. Bellinis for all

who can afford them. She’s her own 1%

chance of radiance. The drizzle we try to catch

like that girl I watched turn all of Trinity Cathedral into self

with stained glass. Self with organ, self with hymnal, with column

like she was a caryatid lost from her ceiling. I wanted to ask her:

isn’t anything sacred? Why not find a belltower and think of God

and deformity. But how is that different? Self

with ancient story. Space shaped like what we’re not

can conquer all desire. Self on a memory card can conquer

all questions. What price these smiles? These abundant

deletions? Where’s the best light to look human?