Two Sisters Of Persephone

Two girls there are: within the house

One sits; the other, without.

Daylong a duet of shade and light

Plays between these.

In her dark wainscoted room

The first works problems on

A mathematical machine.

Dry ticks mark time

As she calculates each sum.

At this barren enterprise

Rat-shrewd go her squint eyes,

Root-pale her meager frame.

Bronzed as earth, the second lies,

Hearing ticks blown gold

Like pollen on bright air. Lulled

Near a bed of poppies,

She sees how their red silk flare

Of petaled blood

Burns open to the sun's blade.

On that green alter

Freely become sun's bride, the latter

Grows quick with seed.

Grass-couched in her labor's pride,

She bears a king. Turned bitter

And sallow as any lemon,

The other, wry virgin to the last,

Goes graveward with flesh laid waste,

Worm-husbanded, yet no woman.