Morgan, Edwin

An Alphabet of Goddesses
(excerpt)

1. Circe
2.  
3. She thought she could live on the capital of weather-hard Odysseus
4. having stacked his shield and spear at her door
5. and scampered in her bed that long time,
6. but now she has grown old there seem to be
7. no sunny days on her alder-dark island,
8. no fleets of sailors to entice ashore,
9. nothing but to chatter to herself by the stove.
10. What should a scrawny black marmoset
11. hold up her breasts to—men, mirrors, thunder?
12. She has got rid of all her mirrors,
13. and her best men are hogs that root among the thickets,
14. no longer able to rise on their hind-legs
15. and snout her with all they remembered of a kiss.
16. She remembers much, but it is going.
17. Her scrag-tail droops, her spells falter.
18. —Then she pulls on her black stockings, right up,
19. and screeches as she scrapes a nail
20. along the nylon like a welder’s spark,
21. and pins on her old sphinx headdress from Cairo
22. with its mortal colours, immortal desires.