Demeter

I decry the manner in which my world
was ransacked after dark,
by you, ghostly marauder
(bearded with ash, shrugging
shoulders of mould, eyes
gleaming deadwood)

You scuttled roughshod,
cunning as rust, combing the fields
for my daughter until—
wife procured—you plummeted
to your replica earth. And she,
like a pearl impaled
on a hook.

I detest how you poached her
(hubris a carapace against feeling,
I guess), preying on hunger
(that most human of appetites)
The seeds augured our split,
darned her famine,
bit by bit.

I decreed all green things should cease:
the squalls, small chisels
of hail, thorns of lightning
enacted my mandate. I culled
the wilderness of mouths.
I was sharper
than a bayonet.

I dream of her return, my patience fraying.
A skein of images begins:
her skin velvet with mud,
snarls of hair lit by sun.
I dream of her staying.
I dream of her staying.
She is beautiful
like a wound
I cannot help touching.