Amy Pence

Above the Baby’s Grave

Were you arboreal	In memory
before you landed	Mildred Phillips, born
or just caught	in 1910: died
in the net of	1912: darling we miss thee
heavens—
I think of you often	Moss in the folds
in the trees	winged angel—her parents dead but
still a baby, still	two decades later—
with the full ruddy	crown of the head
limbs of Michelangelo's	polished smooth
Christ: for aren't you	like her birth
above me now	this opening
crossing into	arching above
a mimosa as here	the trees, runged around that
I weep by your
grave—aren't you	lost
every absence in me	infant
made flesh—	core

Demeter Rising From the Couch

The way I heard it	She rises
a field, brown-eyed	and goes to
susans: a child	the mirror—
in the field, and then	hollow-eyed, waiting for
the rape, the taking down	sounds:
to that place: The way	the door,
I feared it was the fall	parting car,
of the spirit	shoes off—
the browning of the eye,	all arrangements
the girl's entrapment	of modern-day
in the underworld	custody
Too old to identify	She rises
with Persephone,	to see how
I understand	her daughter will weather
Demeter's wintering—	the visit:
split from her child almost	curling tight
half of the time	a little shell
powerless in that hollow-	hiding or the nameless
eyed stare	anger flaming
back	up in her

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