PSYCHE ON PROZAC
The prescribed sleep makes her hear
everything clearly. Gone are nights
of grand departures and warring gods
vying for the last word. This new
season brings acute sighs of grubbed out
thistle and ragworts resisting asphyxia.
She feels little about the vacancy
their slow death offers,
the rows of poppy seed and chickpeas
she might plant.
She feels little at all, actually.
Infernal torpor.
Hasn’t even considered why
every mirror is veiled by gauze,
singed by the lantern’s flame.
She has only the vaguest memory
of her former self or how that otter smooth
arrowscar on her arm got there or how
Venus thrust her head against the cellar floor.
She can’t see the welted geometry
Worry’s whipmarks left on her back.
Time, that immaculate housekeeper, long
since removed the yellow tape, cleaned
blood pools and dusted crystal vessels
filled with black rankwater and gales.
All the Gods who saved her have new caseloads.
Her sisters have washed ashore.
Pleasure is crying, starved.
Tonight’s supper is burning (again).
Psyche opens the oven door, places her bare
hands on the Calphalon pan spilling over
with ambrosia (again) and tells the family
it’s time to eat. They gather round her.
Cupid doesn’t notice her blistering scalds,
or know she revels in being scorched awake,
in the moments before giving thanks
for their darkened portion
of forever.
There are limits to what
even Love can know.