Other Hungers By Marcie Lynn Tentchoff

Persephone,
we know your mother
called the other gods to task,
imploring them or nagging them
to drag you up from Hades’ lair
and bring you home.
We know that,
thanks again
to her complaining,
you must spend six months
of every year
above the ground with her,
Demeter, your grim
husband’s hated
mother in law,
instead of down below with him.
 
But do you hunger,
sometimes,
while they tempt your tongue
with summer berries,
apricots, and tender grapes,
for the red ripe juices
of the pomegranate,
rich and sweet as flowing blood?
 
And, when your mother,
clinging, holds you
close and tight, on carpets
of bright meadow flowers,
do you miss the dim,
bone-filled freedoms
of the underworld,
and the cool caress
of your dark lord?
 
(First published in Sometimes While Dreaming)
 


Marcie Lynn Tentchoff is a poet/writer/editor from the west coast of  Canada, where she lives surrounded by trees, blackberry bushes, animals, and family.  Her work has appeared in such publications as Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, and Star*Line, and she has edited magazines and anthologies of fantasy, sf, and horror, aimed both at adult readers and children.  She also teaches acting and creative writing at a local dance studio, and therefore spends much of her time writing and reading odd little scripts.  Her relationship with technology is… complicated.

 

Published 5/12/19