The mouths of her shadows are pursed by time
to suck sun-lit memories from the wood.
Freezing damp and candle-smut have raised

It haunts us, the misappropriated flesh,
be it Pelops’ shoulder after Demeter’s feast
or Adam’s rib supporting Eve’s new breasts,

Persephone white-faced
carries her vegetal cross
on a stalk perpendicular

Off

in a huff,

I missed,

almost,

the moral of

a dancer, the Eve

of all such, ever,

In zigzagging overhead cables
strung with ornaments,
in trash, in residual playbills
for holiday events,
in rain and the silver unsplendid
ghost of a winter sun,
sorrow for something ended.

Pack it up, boys; we’re done.

In Ohio, the untried earth lifts
To coax pale horses from the edge of a wet, blue field.
White apple blossoms are unhurried

Field is frozen, it doesn’t move
even as snow starts to cover it.
Nothing grows there.

There is not one leaf left on that tree
on which a bird sits this Christmas morning,

the sky heavy with snow that never arrives,
the sun itself barely rising. In the overcast

At a poetry reading in a factory
A discussion begins

Why open that door?