Poseidon

Poseidon has struck me 

with his staff

plunging through my chest

the three barbed points 

arcs of ice-cold lightning 

blazing like white sea foam.

My heart had drowned

under the waves

sunk and covered beneath 

the floor of the sea 

where the light could not reach

and there I lay through

dark months

dreaming my dark dreams.

Until Tethys tore me up

from beneath the smash

of the waves and the 

weight of the dark

and set my chest on fire again

pounding life back

into my lungs and veins.

Now I am lit at the edges

like Helene’s torch blazing

pouring out uncanny power

all around me 

into the water

until the waves about me glow green 

and bloom with

phytoplankton flowering.

(Cropped photo by Ethel Ross Barker, Buried Herculaneum -

https://archive.org/stream/buriedherculaneu00barkuoft#page/114/mode/2up, Public Domain,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63430077)