Poppies for Persephone

Reemerged

ashen hem, grave stained lace

dragging against the foreign earth.

She has long forgotten

its softness,

its radiant warmth,

the way footsteps here vanish

without an echo,

but the granules remember.

It dressed the sky in yellow ribbons

braided from streams of dust,

to welcome her home.

Crows prepared the field,

cultivating seeds,

feeding them with flecks of gold

and husks of last harvest,

cawing away the late-winter snows,

until green sprung forth

from the clay's clenched fist

and crowns of red unfurled.

She touched each petal,

delicately in turn,

prayers for unvisited tombs

and wove them into a wreath

to wear until the autumn equinox

would summon her back home

to shadow.