Demeter Walking The Fields In Winter by Isabel Cristina Legarda
I.
Be glad I don’t know
your name, your face.
I walk through the city sometimes
and wonder if unbeknownst to me
you are right in front of my eyes.
Rumor has it you’re some sort of god –
black leather garb, black wheels,
all the horse power, your vehicle
a chariot from a shady underworld –
but you’re no god to me.
If I could, I would take you
somewhere across the snow mantle
to a clearing where we can almost hear
droplets falling off icicles,
our breath like smoke before our lips.
II.
Tied to a gnarly trunk
you’d catch the glint
of a sharpened blade in my hand,
hear my voice explaining
that your answers to my questions
will direct my scythe.
Why didn’t you care about her fear?
Why didn’t you listen when she cried?
I’ll answer your denial with inscriptions in blood,
your consensual and your wanted it
with carvings on your worthless body,
my breath like smoke before your lips.
III.
You probably think you’re some sort of god
because you’ve always gotten what you wanted.
I too have my powers. A few weeks of my neglect
and the world is a wasteland, dark and cold,
an underworld brought topside by my grief.
Forgiveness is a gas lamp
lit by men like you
and given to women to carry.
Problem is some of us can see in the dark;
we can wait in the woods
in shrouds of mist
until a solitary branch cracks underfoot.
It’s cold out here but my skin is on fire,
my breath like smoke before my lips.
IV.
When I became a mother
I learned about the paradox within:
I am capable of deepest empathy and love
and fully capable of murder in cold blood.
I’ll relish the curse of your open wounds,
your blood spilling onto the wintered earth
where it belongs, me standing over you
with a dripping blade.
As I wash away my rage
in a river of your blood
you’ll cry for me to stop, and no one
will hear you, or care, or come.
I will become like you.
I will not hear your voice.
I will not see your tears.
When I’m done with you,
you’ll wish me dead,
and I will punish you
by living.