Persephone Addresses Her Granddaughter Abigail Elizabeth Ottley

Persephone Addresses Her Granddaughter

You go walking arm in arm in the honey-suckled dusk. It doesn’t matter where.

When he offers you a flower neither purple nor blue but darker than the midnight sky is you stupid fool that you are stretch out your hand to receive it.

For a moment it rests on the pink palm of your hand seeming to stir like a tiny creature breathing. You dip your nose and mouth to meet it half drunk on its sultry perfume.

In that one moment of weakness — you can call it innocence if you want to —

in that one second of trifling weakness you are forever lost to yourself.

Abigail Elizabeth Ottley

59