Richard Schnap’s most recent poem to appear here was Happily Ever After (February 2014).

Portrait in Three Movements
By Richard Schnap

1
She stands in a corner
Against two walls
One grey with an aura of light
About her, the other black
As a starless night sky.
She wears a white blouse
And a long patterned skirt
And her arms are folded tightly
Against her as she gazes
Unsmiling at something
Hidden from view with no clue
As to what it is.

2
She is at the turning point
Between the Great Depression
And the Second World War
Emerging only slightly
From a grey realm but facing
A dark future. But she is ready
To confront whatever horrors
Lay before her, standing
Proud and resolute, determined
To defeat whatever demons await
In the black shadow rising
Like a great hand to pull her in.

3
Persephone had bid goodbye
To the too brief summer sun,
To the glossy leaves waving farewell
As their skins begin to fade
To bloody red. She knows not
How long she will be entombed
In the penitentiary of the underworld
Where she will have only dreams
To comfort her in the cold cage
She is condemned to, one in which
She fears she will never escape from,
Not even if the world itself was to end.