Jonquil bells slap open
everytime I turn my back. I don’t feel foolish
drawing willow-buds to my lips.
It’s private here. This year death
was everywhere and my friends, attempting
reassurance, said, “Persephone always came back.”
Is that how it was? – Hades made a hole in the earth,
flew his chariot through and snatched me.
Moles have left tiny dirt mounds
strewn across the lawn. I think of them nuzzling
damp tunnels so wholly confident in their work.
When I was nine visiting my aunt, her neighbor
slammed one with a shovel. Wanting a pet so badly,
I carried the brown strip
all afternoon against my chest.
Nothing comes back after it’s been
really gone. Demeter was relieved
at least to share her daughter,
but winter changes people.
There is only an appearance of me, here
on the sideporch sitting combinations:
a bluejay swathed in forsythia, the first
colony of oniongrass, the depth
of its aggressive green.
This piece originally appeared in the journal One Meadway, published in the spring of 1992.