Hecate, My Fixer

I’m visiting, like Persephone to spring   

(the season of garland-wrapped alleys),

this city of transit timetables.   

My fixer meets me at the station next to the recital hall,

where she must have snuck in earlier

unnoticed during the quartet’s end-of-the-century valses chantées.

It wasn’t until afterward

that I felt her mulling presence 

in the form of a delusion: I live in this city,

this Tuesday, this murmuring platform, everyone 

clutching programs for a night of music

or the mourner’s Kaddish.  

I’m back for Dad’s funeral. 

In the hours before the memorial,

diminished to confusion, Mom thought I was him. 

I explain I do not live here, 

that he is dead; I collect my shoes 

from where she had placed them

by his side of the bed. 

The train pulls in and Hecate takes my hand.  

We cross worlds to Brooklyn, where Dad was born,

cheap wine our torches. Sing until 2 am,

like Persephone to radial spring.

Published by Unleash Lit in August, 2024 and by Common Ground Review in July 2024 as the 2nd Place award winner for their annual poetry prize.