Persephone

By VICTORIA REDEL

 

Happiness has just walked into the room and I don’t know how he looks to you
but to me he’s wearing the t-shirt you wore outside pruning the fruit tree. 


 

When I come close—how can I not?—he smells of dirt you’ve been turning in
the yard.

 

How do I know he’s not an imposter? Echo happiness? Or that those pretty lips
have any interest in sticking around? What was it our favorite Greek,
Epictetus, said?

 

“If you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time.”

 

Sometimes, after winter, after the burlap is unwrapped, the limbs really
look dead.
What are we going to do knowing not everything makes it?

 

Or some years, too much, a littered mess of squishy fruit.

 

I don’t know if you catch Happiness whistling the Rhythm Revue hit
I’m hearing or if those low sugar notes seem too easy

 

and make you want to take off or dig quiet beds in the garden till dark.

 

It’s an old joke by now, isn’t it. What’s to be scared of? Everything.
Call me a two-time loser. I’ll still shimmy. Call me gullible when the Good Day

 

tucks us in. If by morning there’s a late frost, I’ll shiver then.

 

I like standing at night next to you brushing my teeth.
There, in the mirror, you, perfectly backwards.

 

 

Victoria Redel is the author of Woman Without Umbrella, her third collection of poetry.

Click here to purchase Issue 03

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Persephone

Related Posts

Cloudy sunset over field.

Florida Poems

EDWARD SAMBRANO III
I will die in Portland on an overcast day, / The Willamette River mirroring clouds’ / Bleak forecast and strangers not forgetting— / Not this time—designer raincoats in their closets. / They will leave for work barely in time / To catch their railcars. It will happen / On a day like today.

Two Poems by Hendri Yulius Wijaya

HENDRI YULIUS WIJAYA
time and again his math teacher grounded him in the courtyard to lower / the level of his sissyness. the head sister chanted his name in prayer to thwart // him from playing too frequently with girl classmates. long before he’s enamored with the word / feminist