Blaming Mercury
Mercury’s in retrograde, they say,
which means as much to me as “stroganoff’s
in platypus.” Yet friends assign this planet
the blame for a raft of problems: clumsiness,
acne, painful menstrual cycles, fights
with family or partners, especially men.
I’ve been lucky – the men I’ve dated never
screamed or raised a hand, never tried
to frighten me. The closest was a guy
who turned loud and jealous when he drank.
One night, tired of his shit, I drove away
and he spit on my car. The next day he acted
baffled, swore he’d never do that, til I
was half-convinced I hadn’t seen what I saw.
I ended things soon after. He beat my door,
demanding that I talk to him, but left
when I held a phone up to the window, dialed
a 9, a 1. Still, I wasn’t afraid.
I was lucky. My grandmother wasn’t.
Her husband sent flowers to win her back,
then killed her. I know other women who’ve made
the choice to flee the men they loved, and blamed
themselves, their blood, their luck, a little ball
of iron sulfide fleeing toward the sun.
* * * * *
How Rome Was Founded in the Wilderness
Sun cracks open the forest’s ribcage.
Each morning, the she-wolf inspects
the pink babes nuzzling her teats, thinks,
Today I will eat them. They’ve grown fat
on her milk since she found them half-drowned
and squalling on the riverbank. Her own pups
had sickened, their sweet smell turned to rot,
so when she sniffed the two hairless rats,
she fed them from her thoughtless grief. Now,
they’re round and toothsome, but they smell like her,
hot sweat and shit. They don’t have teeth
to eat the prey she brings, though they lick
contentedly at blood. Their tiny claws
are sharp as thorns; their eyes, at first vague
as deer’s, now track the fern-flicks of wings
and subtle paws. If she lets them live,
they’ll learn to run, to hunt. What strange packs
these beasts would form. They squirm against her fur,
and she soothes them with a snarl. If they live,
she’ll teach them how to fight for territory,
kill for it, piss to show their ownership,
howl their names from seven cold hills.