Middle School
Persephone and her friends brought
Waxed paper cups of ice cream
To the meadow by the river.
They tasted each other’s flavors.
Their laughter made ripples a heron
Mistook for alewives underwater.
Under some of their shirts
The first hiccups of puffy nipples.
They huffed webbed dandelions whose
Wishes floated in the air with a pop song
Throbbing tinnily from a neon phone.
Ants gathered on a plastic spoon.
Who knew the earth would open?
It was Tuesday in a small town.
They lay on their backs daydreaming
Into each other’s pierced ears.
* * * * *
Metamorphosis
Because I liked to bring the outside in
I had on my desk a painted bowl with
Three stones in it like eggs in a nest.
I liked to brood over them, to thumb
Their surfaces and think.
They were so gentle, a kind of pure
Potential. One afternoon
You made me monstrous, ghost
Of all you couldn’t control.
Looking for anything to lob, you lifted
The largest as I stood across the room.
Later I iced my collarbone and restored
The barren stones to the world.
* * * * *
Persephone’s Friends
When her story tore open they ghosted.
Dandelion gossamer, ducklings paddling
Hell for leather into the cover of cattails.
Then they biked into the blue afternoon
Of average adolescence. At home
They sulked in clothes-strewn bedrooms
And griped about setting the table.
They unfollowed her on Instagram
And blocked her cell. They cropped her
Out of images and didn’t say her name
Except to agree she never really was
That great a friend and maybe she was
Asking for it braless in that tank top.
* * * * *
Metamorphosis
Sometimes you seemed to want to make
Something dazzling from your rage.
You knew I liked it: the antique mirror
I’d bought at a dusty storefront run by sisters.
You grunted when you swung it from
The wall and flung it to the floor.
For an instant bits of slivered
Glass fell up like inverted rain.
And then it was over. Sure enough,
It cut me. And it took years to pull
The crumbs of glass out of the wool.