Achelous
2021
Mounted by a bull. Fucked,
face pressed against and hitting wood
(afterwards, I search my cheek for splinters)
over and over,
and the barn is painted black as tar.
I imagine a doggone wretched child,
hoofed and furred and vile.
I’d wrap it in a kitchen towel and throw it in a lake,
watch it sink like a tossed stone,
headed for a muddy grave.
How it’d haunt me:
a cloaked poltergeist, sounding ‘clip-clop'
as it paces behind me, through all my rooms
and all my days,
tutting, mocking, calling me names. Oh, sweet Pasiphaë, will you lead the way?
I touched that fair bull and whispered:
I want you to want me.
But I didn’t want what always comes next,
and the paint is rubbing off on my bare arms. Come May, I suck the saccharine stamen out of lilacs
and watch beetles mate, my eyes wide in depraved delight.
Come August, I say smugly:
To reap one must first sow.
I reap by cutting off the head-
connection sheared and scar left, I hide my shame