Persephone, Falling
One narcissus among the ordinary beautiful
flowers, one unlike all the others! She pulled,
stooped to pull harder—
when, sprung out of the earth
on his glittering terrible
carriage, he claimed his due.
It is finished. No one heard her.
No one! She had strayed from the herd.
(Remember: go straight to school.
This is important, stop fooling around!
Don't answer to strangers. Stick
with your playmates. Keep your eyes down.)
This is how easily the pit
opens. This is how one foot sinks into the ground.
Mother Love
Who can forget the attitude of mothering?
Toss me a baby and without bothering
to blink I'll catch her, sling him on a hip.
Any woman knows the remedy for grief
is being needed: duty bugles and we'll
climb out of exhaustion every time,
bare the nipple or tuck in the sheet,
heat milk and hum at bedside until
they can dress themselves and rise, primed
for Love or Glory—those one-way mirrors
girls peer into as their fledgling heroes slip
through, storming the smoky battlefield.
So when this kind woman approached at the urging
of her bouquet of daughters,
(one for each of the world's corners,
one for each of the winds to scatter!)
and offered up her only male child for nursing
(a smattering of flesh, noisy and ordinary),
I put aside the lavish trousseau of the mourner
for the daintier comfort of pity:
I decided to save him. Each night
I laid him on the smouldering embers,
sealing his juices in slowly so he might
be cured to perfection. Oh, I know it
looked damning: at the hearth a muttering crone
bent over a baby sizzling on a spit
as neat as a Virginia ham. Poor human—
to scream like that, to make me remember.
Demeter Mourning
Nothing can console me. You may bring silk
to make skin sigh, dispense yellow roses
in the manner of ripened dignitaries.
You can tell me repeatedly
I am unbearable (and I know this):
still, nothing turns the gold to corn,
nothing is sweet to the tooth crushing in.
I'll not ask for the impossible;
one learns to walk by walking.
In time I'll forget this empty brimming,
I may laugh again at
a bird, perhaps, chucking the nest—
but it will not be happiness,
for I have known that.
Used
The conspiracy's to make us thin. Size threes
are all the rage, and skirts ballooning above twinkling knees
are every man-child's preadolescent dream.
Tabula rasa. No slate's that clean—
we've earned the navels sunk in grief
when the last child emptied us of their brief
interior light. Our muscles say We have been used.
Have you ever tried silk sheets? I did,
persuaded by my postnatal dread
and a Macy's clerk to bargain for more zip.
We couldn't hang on, slipped
to the floor and by morning the quilts
had slid off, too. Enough of guilt—
It's hard work staying cool.
(c) Rita Dove. All rights reserved.
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