Demeter’s calloused hands inch towards mine
I taste each fingertip in the golden dust that sprinkles my scythe
Her pitying reflection in each bead of sweat that rolls down my earth
Wetting its molten core.
You are a shadow oil that spills and spreads
In my twisting sea of dreams
Leaving beached whale calves and bleached ocean treasure
On the windy shores of my mind.
Demeter’s lustful sister has shackled me
In the sands at war with the waters of Paphos
Surrendered against the filmy foam that immured her nascent body.
Stuffed with the ash of stolen fire
I am unable to touch Pandora
Whose glassy body curves around the shivering aches in my chest
Preventing disaster's sweet release.
The earth yawns open upon your arrival
Golden chariot hurtling through the ducked heads of narcissuses
Your spoked wheels puncture the airways of my heart.
You rip Demeter’s daughter from the souls of soil
Push her pale shaking body into labyrinthine blood tides
Let her drown and spin my face to watch her.
You wanted my daughter too.
When she inhaled the world you filled her lungs with black water
Poured undulating waves of underworld
Into her swimming green eyes forever frozen in fear
And red traffic light.
I have decided to retrieve her.
Walk through soulless ghosts who mourn
The absence of forgiveness in its fiery form
And flit about the fading grey fields of asphodel
There I will find you
Perhaps dining with Persephone or
Swimming in the rivers that encircle earth’s sad shape
Buried under the crying cosmos
Your ruined body among this hellscape.