A Dread Queen’s Winter
Ellen Webre
First published by Calliope Literary Magazine
The daughter of spring is a barren field,
a pitch black wreath of shadows
from the day her lover lay her down
and did what men and gods do.
That is what they say at Summer’s
prompting, so that no mortal will offer
milk and honey to half-dead children.
If Hecate is a songbird, then Persephone
can be pregnant, wiping red pollen
from her breasts in Poseidon's garden.
Her uncle is fond of her, as she brings
messages from a brother long buried
beneath salt and seashells. Her footprints
make anemones on the shores of Cythera,
Infants cannot be carried for six months
of a year, so over and over the unborn
are baptized in the river Styx, glaze-eyed
ghosts in the arms of a dark sister.
Persephone does not mind this,
knowing well that their shrieks of laughter
comfort her husband when she is away.
None will ever feel sunlight,
so she captures its fire in her hair,
wrapping them around the clamor
of youth who drink it in like bull blood.
They are garnets blooming inside themselves,
these poppies of silk sheet unions,
these pomegranate seeds made flesh.
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Cauldron Anthology