Prognosis

 

Prognosis

 

The doctor shook his head,

The horizon’s coming after her,

He said.  He said,

It’s going to tip her off this world -

Which, after all, is flat, linear

When unfurled -

And take a part of your world too.

Did you imagine that the Coriolis

Effect was a fictitious force?

Or that Achilles would never catch up

With the tortoise?

That life was travelled along a Möbius strip?

 

The TV’s on all day, playing repeats,

A mockery of time passing.

She sits,

A bundle of sticks thrown at her feet,

Too many to count, too few not to number.

 

How much courage do you have to muster,

Waiting, knowing, looking over your shoulder?

Gift

 Gift

 

Medea takes the lift

each floor a new betrayal

love’s knife sharp truth

across the throat

until there’s no one left

no one getting in no one getting out

no more hearts for sale

 

and now the doors won’t open

a lid on a box that is forbidden

and then the light goes out

so there are no walls no ceiling

only a floor she cannot trust

she might be rising she might be falling

she just might have disappeared

she puts a hand to her face

touches skin with skin

understands the weight of faith giving in

 

She’s Psyche perched upon the spire

waiting for the marriage beast

in the darkness for her husband’s breath

for Persephone’s beauty played upon a lyre

and she’s lost all hope of Pandora’s gift

she’s alone dissolving and becoming myth

 

she leaps upon the pyre