Persephone by Tanya Rakh

Lily girl, you skip up the sky and land face-first in cloud milk. It’s warm up here, it blankets, and it only chokes a little at first. Then you surrender to slow breath and clover, the blue clover of impossible springtime

You meet him by the river

That golden poet with those eyes

You offer him your lilies

He offers you a sonnet and you drink

You plan to meet again tomorrow but

The water is rising

You awaken in a peach pit with a whispering man

He calls himself death and you believe him

He worms your sonnet heart as he enters

You learn to speak insect, you carry the worms,

Feed them, let them breed

Your mother tried to find you but she’s dead now

Far too many years between the lily and the seed

You call the names of all the highways

They listen but they do not breathe

Persephone, I’m sorry

I couldn’t keep your boy at home

I couldn’t tell him of your sorrow

He would have wept himself to bone

And now we wait here for the devil

To give us matchsticks for our chores

What do we do with them?

We’ll tell you

We spell out sonnets on the floor.

Tanya Rakh was born on the outskirts of time and space in a cardboard box. After extensive planet-hopping, she currently makes her home near Houston, Texas where she writes poetry, surrealist prose, and cross-genre amalgamations. Her writing has appeared in numerous journals including The Gasconade Review, Redshift 4, Literary Orphans, Fearless, Yes, Poetry, and The Rye Whiskey Review. Tanya is the author of two books: Hydrogen Sofi and Wildflower Hell, new editions of both available from Posthuman Poetry & Prose.