poem28 Aug 2022 06:00 pm
Claire Smith
Summertime - Persephone strides through parklands blazing sun ripens flesh. She picks a pomegranate rips it in half with fingernails, sucks out sour seeds licks acid aftertaste – juice dribbles round her lips. She meets him fishing the lake: torn combats, faded rugby shirt, baseball cap. He knows how to talk sweet through a transparent film of roll-up cigarette smoke to the young Goddess. ~ Autumn – he romances Persephone: bags of fruit bonbons, pear cider, A posy of sycamore helicopters he rests on her head, crowns his queen. He makes her laugh with his game of ducks ‘n’ drakes. No stones thrown – he uses conkers to skim across the water. Her heart reeled along with carp, roach, perch. Her mouth hooked as he kisses her – this odd mortal. ~ Christmas – he invites Persephone down to his basement. Furnished from strangers’ skips: water-stained couch, mattress torn, cooker red with rust. She stares at the ceiling, Persephone and him coupled – ends. He rocks her body: clammy, breathless, worn out. Puzzled; she wonders is this all mortals do? Pluto’s waiting in the Underworld for his Persephone to reappear. Her lesson is learned – The earth a place too cold, tiresome, flawed. Return to Pluto’s Underworld she would...
