Content Warning: death, dark themes

‘…no crueller plague, ever rose from

the waters of Styx, at the gods’ anger.’

—Virgil, The Aeneid, Book III: 215-216

Follow the stones of a

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tumbledown wall to where

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they crumble into a question.

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Dusk or another disaster beats fire at

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the silhouettes of the far tombs.

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What do you suppose these

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dark piles are, all glint and menace?

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We stitch between answers.

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A shriek on the wind!

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We’re getting deeper into a

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state we can’t easily return from.

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You hum a lullaby

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while I stumble over lines

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from an epic poem.

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The ancients wrote of

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a bird that sizzles into ash and

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rises anew. You scoop a handful of

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feathers, lustred as onyx.

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Raven? Crow? One escapes and

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whisks onto the head of a shadow.

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It turns to speak in a gale of whispers,

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cracking its wings on the air.

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Do you know what I am?

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Come closer! And I see a monster

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gentled by a human face.

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The last of the harpies,

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a lonely storm.