What if Persephone remained a hard woman?
An ethics of care turned towards oneself. 
Love’s harvest, the halves of intimacy in these latitudes.
A climate of change revealed as cycle of constant
return, how to reconcile, farm my inadequacy 
for yours or simply distract. Let’s just say
for argument’s sake, let’s just say
pugilism is always political, platforms cropping hay,
the field of absolutes you might travel to.  
I distil the brackish dark, listen low over the lees, 
liar strings laid flush to decider core. Store
of regrets, bare-knuckled figs, a desire to fall foul. 
Your rallying jig as jubilant plucked yew.
Cross-dressing Orpheus to your Eurydice,
I discover I want as a mode. To provoke
the strike back, for you to tell me that the light 
is yours, and it is I who have disengaged song, 
who must feel my way through the ever-burdened earth.     
To be called a muffler, bobbing compliment.