Falling.

I. Proserpina

She got pulled down and learned to like it. It happened gradually, from the warmth maybe, the moans . . . all those half-years in hell and one day a murmur, almost somnolent, all right then, fuck me in the ass.

This was the day she returned, bloodied and dreamy, one broken heel and dress inside out, to the frozen earth - the first time spring came late. Ceres knew then she had lost her. Blanched almonds and fennel, boiled wheat, white seeds, offerings for the dead; Ceres bit her fingerpads until they burst like grapes.

II. Heroin

What would happen, they said, is that we would like it, and then we would do anything for it. The drug seemed like chalk dust or powdered orchids, and I dreamed at night about the needle:

dragonfly metal and a barrel like clouds, plunger pushing waves of liquid like melted nacre. It would feel like clouds, I imagined - "opiate," opaline slipping-down feeling of sleep coming on, or maybe sex. They would push the tine into the delicate nearly-tinned skin between my toes, the tiny veins -

I ran in to my mother's bed, clenched my legs to my chest, clenched my feet into my hands, and lay awake all night sweating and cleaving. I would like it. I would like it like heaven and would be lost.

JOY KATZ recently completed an M.F.A. at Washington University in St. Louis. She is currently a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.