Again in Spring I Cry

Brick lifted upon brick, forcing together the clay

to force the enemy out. To keep him

out and gone forever.

He speaks the words, the last words,

and my eyes like candles shrink

and diminish under the flame in the pit

of his volcanic sky. And he, my darkness,

sinks and burns with blue sorrow

into the pit beneath my waxen eyes. His serpentine

hands slithering through my hair,

constricting around my throat chest waist. Metallic

against my petalled skin.

I lift clay to mouth, wetting and molding. Brick

drying against mortarless brick eternally. To the end

of the world this building. And the only alternative

is no alternative, an underworld of silver linings,

golden chains wrapped loosely (and growing

tighter) around my neck with promises

of a full gut and a place to lie.

I lie while bruised blossoms melt and mold

into persephonized daughters. Sleeping and wilting

forever reflowering next to the Lord

and Master of the wedding bed, the man

standing next to me, cold and endarkened.

Sunflowers bloom and I turn away from the morning, pulling

the sheets over my bare breasts and eyes, wanting

like another simultaneous death

to slip into the river, wet and cold and unchangeable.