When She’s Gone - Maya Spector

[Larry Robinson]

When She’s Gone

Hades paces.
He doesn’t like it
when she’s gone.
It’s not that he envies
her summer reveries,
the company she keeps, 
or the blossoms and fruit of
the sunshine world.
No, he’s made
his comfort here
in the mist realm,
but he feels unsettled,
unbalanced, drained
without her.

The dead drift by
in their bland uniformity.
Maybe it's color
that he misses.
Maybe it’s the fragrance
of flowers she is always
wrapped in, exudes,
even here.

He drums his fingernails
on the cold slate table.
He paces.
This is what he misses,
here among the gray
and boring dead -
her aliveness,
her very life.

	- Maya Spector