Photo by Margarita Zueva. Creative Commons.
Hades, I might have gone with you if you’d asked;
left my flowers and the world of matter behind,
but then you gave me your seed. From then I had you.
You believe me trapped in your red honeycomb,
Each tart cell a prison room.
I will consume these chambers from within
and emerge, my mouth ringed blood-red.
You are the transforming darkness, o father,
but your shades must not be mistaken for power.
You cannot possess what is glimpsed shining in a vernal field,
for what is taken underground then knows decay
and what dies lives again. We are all remade
by your realm, or by our fear of it. Only you remain as you are,
those dead flowers in your grip, trapped at the gates.