Sprung

inevitably

By Harper Lewis Published 7 months ago • Updated 7 months ago • 1 min read

Persephone

Spring penetrates Winter, kicking

February’s door down,

urging xylem up to tips of branches, bursting green out of tender wood,

opening flowers like lips,

butterflies and bees

collecting nectar

flowers opening like lips into dizzy electric buzz of oscillating,

kinetic anticipation of pollen exploding stamen into pistils,

fragrant as tea olive,

dewdrops sweeter than honeysuckle

clinging to velvet petals

like your lips clung to mine the last time

you breathed for me,

when we sank down into each other like earth,

devouring the pomegranates we were

in each other’s eyes.

Intrusive rhyme bothers me, except as a weapon.

Intertextuality is my passion.

Formalist/ New Critical are my guiding theories.

My words are mine, not a robot’s.

MA English literature, CofC

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