Two Poems

Daphne as a Housewife

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As you leave potato skins in the sink like opened envelopes,
you imagine the quiche you are making grows into a tree.
The spinach pocks into leaves, the yolk into sap.
The clefts of the baking dish turn into fingers,
and the tree is the man you wish would undo your hair
like the wind unfastens the birch’s skin.
He transliterates the dreams of the soap suds,
gives you the reason why you cried over the scorched bread.
When he kisses you, his tongue is red leather.
You awake to all of the lights on in the house again, the faucet dripping.
To the silhouettes of the trees, you cry out,
make me one with you.

Persephone Writes to Her Mother

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Mother, he is a gentleman.
He is a builder with bricks of moonlight.
He knows the secret places of the earth.
He washes the sleep from the eyes of the souls.
He lets them look on beauty.
He lets them tell him they hate him.
In the mornings, I gather berries and apples.
I scrub his back with rind.
I weave spider-spit, eyelash.
He talks in his sleep pudding, fire, discus,
the things he misses.
He breathes, Your body is my orchard.
I am undulating grass.
I am a field of wheat he parts with his fingers.
Poppies bloom in my veins.
When he kisses me, he tastes pomegranate.
The night crawls nearer.
The moans of the dead roll and swell.
Mother, we are well.