This poem was a winner in an AOL/Time-Warner poetry competition when I was working for Warner Bros. It was published in an internal studio publication and then reprinted by the now-defunct Feral Fiction. (Photo by Jose Antonio Alba.)

The Rage of Her Return

Like a garish jester,
Spring jigs as he jangles
his brass bells and
waves the pomegranate-stained
wedding veil of Persephone.
“Have you returned, my
dark daughter?”
Demeter whispers angrily to the
rain-swollen soil.
“Are you returned to me,
my wanton child?”
Demeter wails, as she
shakes the frost from her cheeks.
Fingers claw up through
Demeter’s mound,
scarlet, lavender and lapis,
breaking the flesh of her belly.
The jester lays the veil on the ground
and stands back
until Persephone’s bruised lips
kiss the weave.
Some girls break
their mother’s hearts,
and who is to say?
The rage of her return
only a parent can know.
But for now,
celebrate the violence
of leering, prancing
Spring —
don your mask,
snatch your red, rusted shears
and sing.