Persephone - Avleen Masawan

You carved my body from soil with a knife

but the earth, she doesn’t

forget who she’s home to Swords and dismemberment sing in my blood I’ve tasted dead limbs

dry-crusted with mud I’ve nurtured an army of strong lilac daughters, cut fast from their stalks to make wine for the hopeless

I’ve kissed miser’s purse strings, put madness in boxes I have friends in dark coffins that trade in old veiled things I’d do it again for eternities, just to be part of it all—

When you gathered me up, carved a woman of me you thought my clay eyes were empty of knowing you just painted my lashes, my womb your new prayerbook now a stranger sleeps

deep in my belly

she will not be part of the soil or the skies,

no burned earth skin or summer grass eyes

---

Avleen Masawan is a poet from Sydney, Australia. Her poetry and prose has been published in Plants and Poetry, The Silent World in her Vase, MindWell Poetry and the Australian Fairy Tale Society e-zine.