Zeus,
reduced to a fairy story,
his powers a parlor trick,
is told a joke by the Stymphalian Birds,
themselves now kept by old ladies who clip coupons
and attend Mass on Wednesday,
scattered like matrix dots around the pews.
Zeus laughs,
frothing around his too-fat lips.
This froth falls as snow flakes, here,
on the shoulders of our wool coats,
colored charcoal and navy blue.
Isn't that just like a man
to leave a mess?
And why this place, this park, this January dusk?
Why us?
"Stop ******** sweetheart," you tell me,
turning to face me, slow as a blizzard cloud.
You place one black-gloved hand in my pocket,
the other over my heart,
and kiss me quiet as midnight.
"I want a Stymphalian Bird," I whisper,
later,
in your ear,
my tongue as careless as grandma's Siamese.
"You have one," you say to me.
It's true,
and isn't that just like a woman
to love such hard sharp feathers,
trusting her heart to a matchstick nest
balanced in a tinder tree?
Zeus,
you has-been, you local character,
boring the birds right out of the sky--
behold my darling, your daughter, your headache from the start--
with beak of bronze, bolts of fire,
and her pretty owl--
my heart.