La Folia
It is more amusing
for the gods
to send us blind-
folded into battle, to
make us pay a blood
price with more than
blood, to prick our hearts
with the arrows
of folly and madness
and then to watch us weep
we are their soap
opera, their reality tv
their gossip over the water
cooler of Mímir’s well
they are leaning back
after work in the garden
floating our anguish
on the top of their
cocktails
and knocking them back
over my emotions
I’m paper crafting armor
out of many syllables
and all the incantations
I can think of
so I may conceal
the slow seep
of my wounds
from the all-seeing.
Wotan and Brünnhilde by Ferdinand Leeke, 1930.
