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.

At a poetry reading in a factory
A discussion begins

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

Why open that door?