-- for Anne-Marie
from my unpublished collection
Twilight-blue. The wind is not as biting, hard. You notice it right away. This is the first time the sky has not been dark, at 6:00 pm, in several months. Someone else looks up. Tulips, not yet in bloom, a hint of color in the bud. I am Persephone emerging from the subway –– you say it to yourself, but the cherry blossoms hear, and dust your coat with petals; they touch your hair, a laurel, not only as if they believed you, but as if they recognized you, who meant it as a joke. Persephone didn’t go back to work the very next day, taunts a shadow from the stairwell. A riverboat glides by. And now it’s dark. And yet: does Persephone have very cute shoes? You bet she does.
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First published in Alaska Quarterly Review
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images and text © by Alpay Ulku
