persephone
by Craig Constantine
Yes, your uncle carried you off.
Cry me the River Styx.
You soon had the besotted old goat
Bent to your every whim.
Not tragedy - destiny.
You were the fabulous Queen of Hell.
Wintour and Ru Paul genuflected.
Party-hopping in your stretch Mercedes
From Malibu to Mulholland.
Starfucker, procuress, emotional dominatrix.
Shelling out hits of self-pity
Like so much Special K.
All those bruised egos eating you up.
See, I knew you back when.
Two weird kids who somehow found each other.
We fed on each other’s sadness.
We were junkies for nihilism.
Our dirty little fumblings
Not nearly as intimate as our shared
Tantrums of misery.
The day poor Hades crowned you
In your paradisiacal netherworld,
The weight lifted.
I didn’t miss your sullen
Runway-model looks.
Your neediness,
Your presumption.
You thought you owned me along with the rest.
Then out of nowhere I see you again.
At Trader Joe’s. Walking your wolfdog.
The bar at BLVD Steak, everywhere.
I couldn’t shake you.
A mistake, giving you my number.
But you looked like money, and celebrity.
And now we’re at Petit Trois, swilling wine.
The waiter studies your famous cleavage
As he tops off that last glass.
Your foot brushes mine.
I let my guard down.
Now you’re pressing me against the wall.
My hands are cuffed,
Somewhere in your dress.
Your body feels no different,
Just filled out.
Surrender feels so good.
A long-caged beast breaks free.
Now we’ve had a lost weekend, or three or four,
Two months running. I’ve lost count.
Thus depression kills memory.
I thought, “Well, that’s it.
We were destined for each other after all.”
This is how it ends, with a possessive
Doom junkie of a mistress.
Like Sid and Nancy at the Chelsea.
Or Kurt and Courtney, the dark muse lives on.
But now your sleeping body repels me.
The sheet’s slipped away,
Exposing a bloat of flesh
Preserved in stale cologne.
Smug even when at rest.
Nobody leaves Persephone.
But I dress while she’s murmuring
Something in a sex dream,
And steal from the room.
The morning shines like an Oscar.
The open road blows me another kiss.
I am free again of the maleficent goddess.
Until the next time, those Jimmy Choos
Strut back into my life.
Photo of Craig Constantine
BIO: Craig Constantine has been a day laborer, bread baker, furniture mover, factory worker, and TV producer. Now a poet, his hardest, worst-paid, best job.. His poems are drifting like his younger self, now in the UK, now in the US, now in Australia. He has just been named Editor-at-Large for Poetries In English.