for whit.

(draft 1).

I fell asleep dreaming of spring
and lilacs stolen from gardens
and the memory of their fragrance
and time slips backwards
to a faraway summer
in St. Petersburg,
that city of palaces strung along
necklaces of boulevards,
floating at the edge of the sea
so far north the horizon seems to stop, there;
you have come to the end of the world.
Old women in their kerchiefs
sold bunches of lilacs
and lilies-of-the-valley
outside metro stations,
their scent trailing
down the escalators,
like Persephone descending
to the underworld.
Or rather, the reverse:
the sweet fragrance leading you upwards
from the subterranean palaces of the metro
like Persephone returning back to spring and earth.