I: Late Fall

The first time I saw Persephone pry the pomegranate,

it was late November in a house of

red doors and open shutters.

The guts spilled over her skin, the blood stained the counter,

the knife she used tossed to the side as I stared in disbelief.

“The key is,” she said, “to be diligent in your movements.

Never too tired in one place,

never too keen in another.”

She then pulls a jar off her mahogany shelf,

scoops the seeds in by hand, and showers them in sugar

as snow starts to hit the roof.

“The fermentation will take the season

but we will pass the time.”

II: Winter

The first time I was pried apart was by a man much older than me

I sat in his home, closed against his weather,

my wit tied behind my back and

my age pressed between my fingers.

I sit in her home,

the red doors, the open shutters,

the cold of January icing the fruitless trees,

the jar on the kitchen shelf–

“Do you blame yourself?”

she cuts,

“Do you still hold rage for me?”

The snow falls harder.

When I was a kid I knew everything,

how to cry without noise, how to speak without words,

how to gut a fruit from the inside out in five seconds flat,

but I knew I couldn't save her, even if she was before my time.

The snow falls harder.

“Do you still hold rage for me?”

she echos,

“It's not your fault you didn't find me before

my mother cried and let the earth decline outside

my red door, my shutters.”

The snow falls harder.

Do I still hold rage for me? Do I still punch walls and

eat my fruit and bare my teeth?

Does my mother cry like her mother cried?

Does she let the earth decline?

The walls spiral like the storm.

The red doors, the shutters

scream on their hinges.

The seeds in the jar swirl madly.

The snow falls harder.

I am made of silk, rye, and paper.

I watched my foam birth and grass held together.

I watched a woman swallowed whole by the Earth

kick and scream but still

ate her fruit, bore her teeth,

and live in a home of red doors and open shutters,

and it was never my fault.

The snow falls.

III: Early Spring

The first time we truly see each other,

the blooming flowers warp the foundation,

the open door, the shutters.

Persephone pulls the jar, opens a ginger ale,

pours herself and I a glass,

and kisses my knuckles gently.