Ghazal of the 1 o’clock caller looking for Pomona

The shadow of a tiger swallowtail crosses my legs; I’m in the sunroom, reading,
when the phone rings. It’s 1 pm. There’s a man on the other end asking for Pomona.

His voice isn’t urgent or pleading, just a little gravelly, and matter-of-fact.
I tell him there is no one here by that name. But he simply insists, Pomona.

For a minute I consider asking him if he knows that is the name of the goddess
of fruitful abundance; in tapestries she presides over a cornucopia: Pomona.

But I hang up after saying Sorry, wrong number, and think no more of it. Until
the very next day at 1 pm, the phone rings again and it’s him, asking for Pomona.

And it goes on for weeks after this. I’m convinced even on days when I’m not home,
the yellow phone in the sunroom rings at 1 pm: it’s the caller looking for Pomona.

I’ve tried to tell him to stop calling, that no other woman lives here but me. I
write poems. I grade papers. I don’t make enough money. My name is not Pomona.

The teakettle whistles on the stove in alarm. I butter my toast and spoon
some apricot jam, wondering if they’re friends or lovers, this man and Pomona.

I’ll stop sometimes when I’m out in the city: that dark-haired woman running
in the rain, into the arms of a man at the stop— is that him, is that Pomona?

I water orchids in the sunroom, straighten books on shelves; dust photographs
of my daughters when they were younger. Do any of them resemble Pomona?

She married Vertumnus (the goddess, I mean; not this mystery girl): he tricked her,
disguised as an old woman. I wonder what she’d look like in drag, this Pomona?

Call the police, my friends say; call missing persons. But I’m hesitant. Did she
want to be found, did she want to disappear? Ah this man, this caller. And Pomona.

~ with thanks to Tammy Ho Lai-ming for the germ of the story

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.