the wintered pain a truth brings:
scattered words
to deboss the snows in one land
sands in another

and light muddied is settled by morning
the eyes can’t help but focus
turn south
to the bulging glow of Persephone

who’ll soon dress the mountain
a brash kiss of emerald
toe to crown
stitch to his coat the lurid crocus
the drunken bee

still half here, sleep and she,
hands spread over shoulder, over breast
over sorrow and pleasure
till they are mixed to the consistency of joy
dispersed like pollen
icing the whistled ballads of blackbirds

and truth nests of course
in the shivered angles of the early swallow
and in the hoarfrost and rime
on the reclusive stone
who let the riverbank cover her
wooed to sleep, pillowed
by all things
written to be
burnt or forgotten or remembered
or eaten with the fingers

words like leaves
fickle about…