Demeter in October
by Emily Tuttle
Demeter in October
My daughter drinks with dreary hands,
fingers soft
across feathered rims,
ripe, rare fruits
painted on her lips.
​
Her husband holds a hundred souls
in the crevices of his chest,
rubs them against his ribs
like matches,
stares at her with
fogged, gray eyes. Slowly,
she eats.
​
Days drip into dusk and children
topple to dust, longing for her,
while she longs
for the position of the sun
within the sky, stares at the souls
of her feet, caked with foreign dirt,
instead of those
in her husband’s hands.
​
He will live off the open and close
of her chapping lilac lips,
lusting, not for her
but for the demons
that trapped her here.
Emily Tuttle
Emily Tuttle is a graduate of the University of Maryland College Park, where she was editor of two on campus journals and editorial assistant to 'Poet Lore' for two years. She has been awarded the Jimenez-Porter Literary Prize for Poetry. Previously, she has been published in Rust + Moth, Empty Mirror, and apt, among others.