Taking Leave

Each night your body rehearses
lying still; each year your skin
freezes deeper, rutted surface

of plowed field. Though daily pomegranate
stains crimson your lips, you
won’t return from underground.

Over time worms will rot
all that separates you from grit,
your lips shape soil; enfold molecules

of tree pollen, bitter dung of bats.
Forget Persephone. She was…
lucky, daughter of a goddess, desired.

A rude matriarchy of ants
has ousted the Lord of the Underworld.

Wintering in nests of fermented gleanings,
in summer, they send their daughters

to gather petals from green meadows.
Their myths are vast and faceted as their eyes.