This poem is based on newspaper story I saw some time ago.
It's called "The Questioning."
"Mute and dazed, the latest Persephone
has surfaced in Memphis, Tennessee.
A squad car brought her in just before dawn.
Before the sun could turn its searchlight on her
and make her run.
14, perhaps 15, they think.
When they ask her about the cigarette burns on her arms
and ankles, she shakes her head.
She will not betray her keeper nor the location of hell.
For months, perhaps for years, she waited for them.
For the rescue that did not come.
By now she denies them even her name.
No mother has come to claim her.
And her emergence among us does not explain the seasons.
It happens in autumn, as well as spring.
It is happening now.
Somewhere, somebody's daughter comes stumbling into the light,
refusing to give up her dark burden, which is
all she has brought from home."