Dethronement

WITH pain pressing so close about vour heart,
Stand (it behoves you), head uncovered,
To watch how she enacts her transformations —
Bitch, vixen, sow — the laughing, naked queen
Who has now dethroned you.

Hymns to her beauty or to her mercy
Would be ill-conceived. Your royal anguish
Is all that she requires. You, turned to stone,
May not speak nor groan, will stare dumbly,
Grinning dismay.

But as the play ends, or in its after-hush,
O then, deluded, flee! Her red-eared hounds
Scramble upon your track; past either cheek
Swan-feathered arrows whistle, or cruelly comb
Long furrows in your scalp.

Run, though you hope for nothing: to stay your foot
Would be ingratitude, a sour denial
That the life she bestowed was sweet.
Therefore be fleet, run gasping, draw the chase
Up the grand defile.

They will rend you to rags assuredly
With half a hundred love-bites —
Your hot blood an acceptable libation
Poured to Persephone, in whose demesne
You shall again find peace.