A HARLOTRY OF JUSTICE by Ken Gage ©1999

Great shades of doom break to the surface to enforce the terms of Proserpina’s perpetual probation. And our Miltonian Eve, the spirit in Pluto’s bondage, is grimly escorted below, where foul things crush and crash and kill, but do not expire. The heavens seem as black oceans drowning the sun. Philosophers bicker; a maze of intellectual fury unfolds concerning transgressions and justice, while Ceres, heedless to human words, manifests her displeasure.

Invisible claws of ice pluck out the living green of woodlands. In turn, the wounded leaves and brush bleed their Autumnal hues and shrivel in mock imitation of lifeless despair. Cold hands rake skyborn corpses from cherished seats and hurl them downward. The stiff debris, though high-fallen and from grounded heaps once scattered to the winds, can sink no further. If Jupiter blinks, it does not show. Let it snow.

Through the Underworld’s vaporous veils, Proserpina glimpses a patch of crimson flowers and glossy leaves – the very site of her womanly sin. Our heroine, from her tearless eyes, sees inside and knows that multi-chambered demon-apple temptingly resides; she savors a phantom trace of that forbidden taste.

Having eaten the fruit of the dead in the abundance of an unending pomegranate season, who can rightly judge her mistake? And yet she was and is, nonetheless, enmeshed in this undoing – her seemingly innocent act – and chained yearly, though highborn; she serves Him like meretrices in a lupanaria.

But the torch of divine retribution has been deeply handed down so many times since, ever whoring after stranger gods. The brides of Isis, Moloch and Astarte shift shapes again, abandoning the Temple of Aphrodite for the gates beyond. Until at last, and seated deep, Satan reaps the ultimate benefit of her wintry descent.

The visits continue to be conjugal and annual. Proserpina blushes not. Quietly upon the Throne of Broken Dispensation, a Grand Cosmic Lawmaker sleeps – unstirred, unwoken or unwakable. Perhaps. Perhaps not.