Proserpine's Return, by Sarah Watkins

purified by the gelid creek water, she emerges like Venus,

long dark matted hair flattened to her slick skin

the three angry voices from the basement have melted into the whistle of the wind

and now the yellow grass greets her with a silent wave

she lets herself spill face first onto the prickly patch—

for after so long, she has forgotten the feeling of grass,

its tickling and poking of her tender flesh;

her chapped lips, pressed against the ground, crack into a cautious smile

she had held onto that last image of the green expanse

as she willed her day of salvation—

but her sea of rescue was yellow all along...

you have changed—were you waiting for me?

she rolls onto her back, relaxes into the mattress of needle,

and peers up at the gently-throbbing, desaturated sky

where the small, white-burning sun beats down on her sunless, half-translucent skin

like it did in the hot summers of her youth

oh, how lovely it is—to know you were missed...

through her eyelids, the purple ghost glares at her in the nothing

perhaps she falls asleep, or perhaps she doesn’t,

but when she opens her eyes

she is staring at the same image as before:

the endless, deep blue sky

Editor's note: We rarely get to see a depiction of Persephone/Proserpine when she isn't beautiful, feminine, or carefree. This is a new scene that we don't think about - what happens when she does return to earth, to sun, after being in the darkness and the dirt for so long? That cannot be easy on anybody. This, paired with the two sentence stanzas throughout and references to the wider myth, make for a beautiful read.

About the author:

An Arkansas native, Sarah Watkins is an educator by trade and a writer by necessity. She currently resides in northeast Arkansas with her husband. Her work has recently been featured in several publications, including Applause and Heart of Flesh Literary Journal. Instagram: @sarahwatkinspoetry