My heart slopes back to the hellspace
below the cellar stairs, the crag-ringed night
—slatted, oblique, and creaking—of hag’s
cradle. Persephone roars in the corner,
requiring an exorcist at last—please come
before the candle drips into tomorrow. I spin
and spin, born of a sewing machine and a
wheelbarrow, dead from an overabundance
of bluebirds. I’m the hole in the shade,
the blade in the tarn, the turn in the air.
Singer bobbins and earthworms
mark my descent. Utterdark, raindark,
the winter dark is here.