how did they taste? those
fleshy seeds in ruby that
choking through the meat in
crushing fruit obtained —

how many did you take?

enough to ne’r again with us –
with us – to
see the light of day;
there’s no Persephone in
borrowed headstones, no
chance of spring to lay
in wait; even the flowers
placed upon your cursed pillow;
both young cut at the stem
and doomed to die the same —
both those; they can not stay;

and you? you can not say.

2021
A poem for the late Jerilyn Normandia,
on the 4th anniversary of her death.
Inspired by Silvia Plath