GULA

Castor and Pollux
joined forever at the hip.
I could split myself
into two halves just
so they could each get a taste.
I will etch into
both their ribs and lungs
so when they exhale, it’s my
name that warms their breath.

ACEDIA

I have done nothing
but consult oracles to
find a solution
and like Oedipus
I will sit here on my throne
to repeat fathers'
sins. Dear God, am I
the miasma that reeks here?
Would I change, if so?

LUXURIA

Eros and Psyche
have yet to match us, dear boys.
In confessional,
I speak of the flesh-
bruised like rotting fruit, marks
of desperate youth.
Heads bowed in prayer,
this is Dionysiac
ritual madness.


AVARITIA

Will Hades greet me?
If I spit coins from my mouth,
will the ferryman
take pity on me?
He must know my odyssey.
This is déjà vu,
a fable passed down
by generations. A hymn,
Homeric and worn.

IRA

Adonis river
runs red like veins filled with blood.
The anemones
for my two brothers,
a crown for each of them to  
decorate their heads
before guts are spilled.
I know this will end in war,
no glory for me.

INVIDIA

Heroes never die,
they say. So was Heracles
jealous of Linus?
To know forever,
to escape the throes of death
sounds like Hell to me.
What lives on except
curses and their tragedy?
I am no hero.


SUPERBIA

I will take my fire,
let it blaze until I die.
Prometheus would
have been proud of me.
Maybe from this, I will kindle
something from the heat:
Write poems in ash,
for the ones I have scalded,
or the ones I love.

(Maybe those two things
are not unlike after all.
Maybe so, maybe not.)