In winter he is my lover
I go down among the dead
I go to his darkening arms,
his body of heavy stone.
My name unravels greedily from his lips
Persephone…

And while I lie with him
I think of the sleeping earth
I cannot seem to grasp anymore—
that I am spring; I was responsible
I have forgotten the trees,
voluptuous with figs.
I have traded them for black bushes,
burning with his pomegranates,
the fruit where he hid his desire.
The moon, a cradle of pearls,
seems now a glossy dream.
And oh the sun, I do not remember warmth
The perfume of the woods fades from my skin

He says, You are more beautiful than a dream of life
His eyes—dead—blue—
Alive as they rest upon me
He touches my glittering dress with his gaunt fingers
they curl—
I feel the banging of a sea within him
Oh, the depths we have created in the gloom of his bed
His lust has poisoned me, and I feed endlessly
Rivers of cold silk flow down my body
As the darkest god makes love to me

My mother on earth cannot hear me
Does she worry for me?
I am not her feeble daughter here
In the fruitful dark I am a starving creature
Clinging to his sallow legs
Mother I love you but you are lost from me
I use rubies to play jacks
Dear mother what would you think?

He will soon grow tired of me,
I must leave so that he can nurture his appetite
He forgets as well, I have sucked him dry
He whispers, You inspire obsession
And in the Spring I carry to earth
The sun will blaze over the fields
I will lazily awaken the blossoms
My sighs will echo in his gloaming depths
Mother will tend to her gardens
Then I, again her flower, will slip away

To Hades, from his young lover—
I will lie in the deep green of the long grass,
my kissed limbs ripening with hunger,
dreaming of your winters creeping upon me.