The Labours of Athena

I once compared you to a mayfly; the way you spool

between streetlights. Flashing nervous eyes 

around for rats. We wept over freckled doorways,

mouths stretching around new starvations.

I wanted to tell you about a book I read 

where humans were swallowed by the trunks of trees.

rescued in time by a witch. I wanted to suggest, 

I think this is you. Both tree and hero. 

Why don't you open throats from the inside

and give voice to the roots? If all you need is a weapon,

you have me in your hand. 

I once compared you to a zebra. That was better.

We feel like moments of resolution. 

Slow motion shields.

You rebirth yourself in the image of your peers;

screaming, forehead beaded. 

It has to be done, you said,

it has to be done. At some point. Maybe

every queer soul understands how it feels

to hold a scream in too long.

The divers cast their nets in the fountains outside

the private hospital. I asked them to

hunt for orange scales to jewel your pending crown 

but you said no, no,

that it was your struggle, that you would sculpt it from

the very clay of your own hands.

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Cover photo by Bernadetta Watts