The Oracle Was Stoned

what would have happened had Achilles stayed

entwined with you, his lover, in your bed, who could feel

a pack of  Trojans through his letterman jacket

but also the well of  the water styx he kept in a flask

as he tried to end his lie in a kiss to the crook of  your neck

with dyed body and soul, eyelids a vibrant purple dust

with hair an inch shorter and awkward to touch

before he fled to war Achilles wrote you a poem

a contradictory tea

of  how diadems of  knowledge brew ichor

how even gods fear the future

of  the curse of  polytheism

he reads the plight of Adonis

and the destruction of  a field of  anemone flowers

the theft of  his mother’s newborn

and how you both might suffer the loss of a child

but you warn him that for taking these grains of salt

how Gods will notice him plucking more prophecies

from the bowl of pomegranate seeds and ambrosia

his pipe colludes with him more than you

confirms to him that Zeus is away

worshipping Ceres goddess of  cereal

hoping to see answers in a potion of  milk and honey and fennel

ignoring the texts of his ex, Hera

and ignorant to the inherent theft of the future

at the hands of your lover

they both waste away in a dank darkness

high on a chronol haze

and you are all that is left to demand, from Zeus

the burial of  your love singed and stoned

your love to a man, now immortal, but not where it counts.