Persephone Decides to Catch Up On Emails During a Low Self-Esteem Day  
A poem by Chrissy Stegman

Persephone Decides to Catch Up On Emails During a Low Self-Esteem Day

She opened an email from Banana Republic.
It encouraged her to
find herself in the new look. 

Yet, she couldn’t find herself anywhere. 
The images were all beautiful and strange.
All Gods, true.

Some Gods held hats with great care and
nuance. Others tightened their
belts over slim beige

pants wide with legs. One God looked down
at the ground. That God knew how to look down
but not how to be unseen.

Some Gods were so confident that 
she felt ashamed. 

Then the email asked Persephone to embrace
the look, refresh herself for Spring.

So, she looked for pomegranates and
Titans. She looked for foes to defeat Earth.
She felt the flowering of every meadow

in her blood. She tasted the sour
pit of truth in her teeth.

About the Author:

Chrissy Stegman is a wife/mother/poet/forest dork from Baltimore, Maryland. Her work has been featured in various journals, most recently Rejection Letters, Gone Lawn, and Blue Heron Review. She is the winner of the 2022 Patricia Bibby Idyllwild scholarship for poetry and placed second for the 2022 Ellen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Prize.

Social media:
Twitter (X): @pimpledrose
Instagram: thegoosefaerie

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