Annie Lure is a poetry salon proprietor and durational performance artist of Mediterranean extraction. She operates worldwide.
The paternal grandmother lathers
cortisone on the flaking child, may you
become robust, my heart; palmful
after palmful, she scorns the doctor’s
frugality (didn’t he say only a smidgen a day?),
weaving unbeknownst to her
Nessus’ chiton. The boy’s feverish skin
is now his funeral pyre. Bad blood
murders the air between the doctor
and the boy’s mother:
‘You killed your own child’ snaps like manacles around the mother’s hands.
‘Half of me had to tend my own dying mother!’
is broken up like a genotype.
The young mother gravid with guilt
wombs the blighted boy
in her palms as if to rebirth him.
The maternal grandmother is charged posthumously,
interpellated as Heracles’ anima:
her haste into death consigned the boy
to a careworn, benighted Deianeira.
The pathway to the mourning house is strewn
with cobblestones like blasted brains.
The visiting cousin vacates the boy’s father’s
lap of the serving tray as if vacuuming a miserly uterus.
The coffee cup is clogged like a coronary
with the paternal grandmother’s grief.
Between cup and saucer we graft
paper blessings to freshen her humor.
NOTES:
Greek myth of Nessus’ tunic: Imbued with venom,
Nessus’ tunic inflicts unbearable pain on its wearer.
Unable to bear the pain, Heracles, Nessus’ tunic’s
hapless recipient, prepares a funeral pyre.
Watching the centaur Nessus carry his wife, Deianeira,
across the river and force himself upon her, Heracles
shoots an arrow tinged with poison at him.
Greek mythology/Jungian psychology: the feminine aspect
of a man’s personality
Deianeira, foolishly believing the fatally wounded Nessus’
telling her that his blood would ensure Heracles’ fidelity,
takes his stained tunic to Heracles.
For other contributions by Annie Lure, please follow the link below:
Poetry in this post: © Annie Lure
Published with the permission of Annie Lure