Clarence Wolfshohl
Thomas Hart Benton’s Persephone

She’s older than I’d think,
all those accounts of her and the maidens
gathering flowers in spring meadows.
And Hades, too, more a middle-aged man
than a primal force, a chthonic urgency.

He reminds me of my neighbor
who raises a few head of cattle
and acres of feed corn. The field
of sheaves beckons in the distance,
but he is in no hurry to gather them.

He gazes on Persephone,
his long laboring fingers inches
from her hip. Her hip is not round
in virginal succulence, more angular
to reflect Hades’s creviced face.

And her face, as she reclines
in pin-up calendar pose, is a knowing face.
The curve of light of nose and brow
hints of eyes closed by choice not chance
as if she anticipates his first touch.

Before Hades’s deed the world
was in perpetual spring, all flowers,
all innocence. Her mother’s tears
created the seasons, so the story goes.
But what of fruit, of gathered sheaves?
The knowing face?