Persephone

                March.

Bit by bit, petals stretched toward an
          unreachable horizon, spilling
          sweetness into the air
Assaulting, Infecting nostrils
still dry from an unrelenting winter they had
    g  r  o  w  n
  to embrace.

Weightless relief in the child-blue sky cried:
                    “Spring!”
                and I

  b
  l
    o
          o  m  e  d

  with you.

Marked by woes but yet untouched by the
Fleeting Hand of Persephone, with

                      dreams

            of dancing barefoot
in the yet-to-come(-but-maybe-never) meadows,
You
      beckoned
                          to
                              Me.

Me?

  I,
who had so often tread with
  caution through the Serpent-
      concealing, tall, tall grass—
  I,
        who had come to prefer
            Hades’ contentment to the
              oppressive bright of blossoms,
with a sigh leapt into the cradle of your petals,
abandoning my skin to burn in the sun.





                October.

skinless i quake in the hollow of a wilting flower.
don’t look at me when I’m like this.
don’t look at me.

unstable, uncertain skeleton surveys the falling and the fallen.
          have i the strength?

Recognizing self in the wire-brush
trees (reverent for the final crunch of
underfoot leaves),
a heap of bones--
    clitter-clatter
--drags itself down from the remains of
Springtime

            to
                    whisper
      “farewell”

to a tearful Persephone.


    She doesn’t hear.