Underworld

"...My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here.”
               ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay


First, let me tell you the name
I am called by others is not 
the name I call myself

in the future. Let me tell you
that the smell of bitter green
remains on my hands even after

I've pulled up the vine and 
the root. Who hasn't wanted 
to inhabit a tiny room 

in the soil cushioned by darkness, 
soft and without hurt? For a long 
while I had no name for the thing 

that cleaved me from this pock-
marked plot in the same way
I pulled daughters 

out of the wilderness  
of my longing. When I look
out into the distance, rain

or snow prepares the field
for the agonies of repetition.
I lie awake, counting

with my tongue the hard
seeds I held there, believing
they would be a way to return.