SHADOW OVER THE TOWN Helen's shadow on Trojan rocks still threatens the Greeks, burdens them with the highest taxes the loved exacts from the lover: middle-class teashop warmth forsaken, adding machines count the killed, a scarce spring, a fruitless autumn, quiet markets and barren cribs: see the wretched pass for the mad, the mad for [...]
CASSANDRA'S DREAM Kings from the world over heard me speak with a living sibyl saw me pour out her bowl on the briar I poured water over the earth the kings bowed to my prophecies their losses I meted out as air my city rose out of ashes the famine fell on the day of [...]
A DIFFERENT CLEOPATRA Melt into his joy, like a fruit in his mouth, bear his name not as a near-misfortune but as the future your own small self has awaited. Swaddled for worship, become the promise of wings that took an oath of staying affixed to a mummy; your bone-cage, supple enough for liberty, will [...]
ATHENA CONSIDERS HER DESTINY Stone words hard to wield, smooth as the moon washed of night, shape me into a weapon no man can see except with the eyes of his bones. Words tight as skin in a fleshless space, worn thin in a cage of a promise, design fast leap into the air no [...]
