David Crews

Persephone

You died yesterday. The dog mopes
deep in his cage curled on the blue quilt
in the back of the kitchen—
more permanent than ever his thoughts.
I fed you no pomegranate seeds
and the leaves ironically are still a lush green.
Before the sun sets I fall asleep and dream
of time—a way of puppy-chasing
my mind’s tail. Here when you’re not
really awake not exactly sleeping,
memory shuffles the order of moments,
my legs like dancing snakes wrap
around the green sheets your mother gave us,
outside the window I hear the distant flutterings
of juncos playing in the plum tree
beyond where our garden grows
rampant in the early autumn twilight.
Your dark hair lingers among the grapevine
heading toward the house when I finally wake.
My lips taste sour. I have kissed you
find thousand times over again.

A Story of Loss
This evening I looked my wife in the eyes
and told her her uncle was going to die.
The cancer in his body continues to spring up
in unwanted places like weeds in the far backyard
of a home with simple charm.
Tears began to roll down her face
and she cried the way I remember seeing a woman
in the news cry when a storm washed her home
out to sea, when the finality of loss becomes as real
as the water in the basement of your life.
And it always seems unfair, the usual story—
bad things, good people. But loss I tell her
is simply a part of life like the cold spring
after each expected fall like the pine-coned
morels that break through dirt after fire.
And in that turning we do not find answers
but rather a solace that lets us close our eyes
and whisper I love yous. But we still remember
the way a dog finds his way home
in the middle of the night where he lays down
curls on the damp front porch and waits for
the usually warm and always slow dawn.