At Persephone's Postoffice

By Sandra Lindow

She understands winters of discontent
when snow banks fill heads and words
are corms, dormant beneath snow.
She's learned the value of fallow time.
Soon enough life springs from pencils,
vines entwining keyboards, crocuses sprouting
from restaurant napkins, spinach and endive
unashamedly rooted in church bulletins.

With five smooth stones and a jar
of homemade rhubarb preserves,
I ask for an upgrade--express muse service,
overnight delivery. My carrier,
I complain, is a borderline personality.
When I want her, she's the flicker
that evades me. When I'm busy,
she's a crowgirl disrupting my home.

Service worthy of Shakespeare or Dickinson,
a taproot to the inspiration aquifer,
lush growth laureling out from my house
to McArthur Genius Awards.
"But my dear," Persephone reproves me,
"Independent research shows
too dependable service may only harvest
crates of pallid hydroponic tomato poems."

My muse stands sullenly behind me,
rumpled and messy as a bluejay in February
and presently preoccupied with wiping her nose.
Persephone smiles and I see the pain
of regeneration budding within her eyes.
Suddenly my muse doesn't look so bad.
I take her hand. We'll have some quality time
before it's too dark to get home.

Then from my gathered letters,
I see the hyacinths emerge.