Their Hell

These things he could give.
Hades peeled her an orange, fed
her girl-mouth, kept her from
the strangers outside (those
strangers which appear only in
mourning, or in afternoon games.)

Blue jays: there were blue jays
with their beloved babes. He birthed
them for her, early in that summer
soon turned fall. Those eggs barely
made the subway ride, the old women
clung to him, gathering his ruin,
++++++++++++++++ his honey.

Hades loved them, they would be
his, too. They would grow appetites
too large for their skinny bones.
Some would sit in their cars and die
under the shut-off moon, to distant dark.
There was a graveyard dedicated
to his shadow wives. A place never
+++++++++++++ Persephone’s.

For years, she had no friends.
She grew up before she began,
her mother soundless, shapeless
always found in loneliness fifteen
miles north of the city. After the funeral,
her mother emptied every word into her
++++++++++++++ husband’s coffin.

Persephone loved his pocket watch
most of all. The one with the fingers
bone-white, case worn. Sometimes it
would skip like a record. At times, she
would wish for the shore again, her
mother’s belly, her laughing teeth; but she
+++++++++++++++++ loved their hell.

____________________________________

Joanna C. Valente was born and bred in New York, where she still currently resides. She is a writer and artist who has been featured in various publications, as well as the founder and editor of the online literary publication, Yes, Poetry. In the future, she would like to live by the ocean and own too many cats.