Aubade with Persephone by Jen Finstrom

“Persephone is having sex in hell.”
–“Persephone the Wanderer,” Louise Glück

This isn’t hell, but it is the suburbs,
and now here you are, a forty minute
rideshare from your northside apartment.
Since you started dating seven
months ago, you’ve only slept next
to a man one other time, in a single
room in a community art studio where
you didn’t know where the bathroom
was and held your pee all night.
But now you’ve slept next to a man
several times, alternating between
your place and his, and while he
isn’t Hades and you aren’t Persephone
and this isn’t hell, you are having
Bloody Marys at a strip mall bar
where you are the only woman
besides the bartender. Over the sound
of country music and men playing
pool, you talk about this, the fact
that you didn’t think waking up
next to a man was anything you
wanted, and you still aren’t sure.
But it’s that morning you imagine
as a painting: you sitting on his balcony
in the one plastic chair wearing nothing
but your long blue coat, winter trees
in the distance, the County of DuPage
water tower, geese overhead. And now
Persephone’s story is one you envy.
The narrative is fixed: winter comes,
then spring. The earth opens. It’s inevitable.

# # #
Jen Finstrom is both part-time faculty and staff at DePaul University. She was the poetry editor of Eclectica Magazine for thirteen years, and recent publications include Gingerbread House Literary Magazine and Red Eft Review, with work forthcoming in Thimble and Eunoia Review. https://twitter.com/jenfinstrom

Photo: Moss