A Bucket of Water

by Persephone Abbott

Better warm up the Nutella on the radiator this morning,
Mandela died, the saint who was nobody’s wife,
They’re still trying to make him wash the floors
When what the small boy craved was to be able to think exactly
About the words he wanted to say out loud,
Taking a part along with a smaller part of the world.
Maybe it was privilege
But it must have been so lonely, extending love over
The masses and celebrated for having walked in prison
During thirty years of our lives, exiled from ourselves,
Our little grace period, while he took up
A crowbar adamant at prying open the crypt.

The Pear in Her Lap

She held the green pear
Steadily within her fist,
She had carried it around
To many appointments
Just in case she got hungry.

She decided it was time
To remove it from her bag
Before, unused, it’d be split into two
By mistake. Dusk was coming
It would become too dark
To see the colour of the pear.

In the twilight under closed eyes,
Shaken gently by the train ride,
She longed to awaken
Peeled to touch and odour
To lily bottom rocking,
In rough sand, abrasive grit,
No horizons.

I Want for Powder

In your agenda hours, open slots,
I want for powder to blow
Up the bridge under which two swans
Preen in the frigid waters,
Their necks twisted,
Not looking at each other

Rambunctious Love Fix Me

Saw some sugar off of me
From coagulated bones
Attempting to hide the holes,
Drilled chasms,
Cowering in the depths.

You know you’ve got it.
Sand the ivory,
Make powdery love dust
Prime me, fix me,
Rambunctious turn me
Upside down.

Short Florida Saga

Hot weather
Lounging around
Boiled shrimp.

BIO

Persephone Abbott has been composing poems in her head for years. In this way, before they have the opportunity to meet paper, many poems have already been lost, or heavily edited. A book of her short stories, A Sample of Gouda (2014), as well as an alternative walking guidebook, The Bee’s Tour of Gouda, Buzzing Though Vinita’s Lens (2012), have been published and she is currently working on a chapbook, Flowers of Amsterdam. This last item is a result of her recent move from Gouda to Amsterdam, both situated in the Netherlands. Persephone finds poetically she prefers urban vines to rural pastures.