Proserpine

An empty incense burns beside
anemones upturned
and beckons for the beauty
in the alms that were adjourned.

Bequeathed to Death, as if to Life,
the curse of Myrrha holds
the remnants of remembrance
by the seed that stains her folds.

An alabaster artifice
is all that’s left of love-
A portrait of the daughter,
none would slaughter twice the dove.

-Amy Struthers

-Image: Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s ‘Proserpine’ (1874)-