“Revision” by Matthew Wester

There is a cave where myths
attempt to rewrite themselves.
They scrunch faces in earnest,
dog-ear every forlorn fragment of
emotion. Draft each sigh and squeak,
thinking maybe something will come
of it?

Seeds scatter on the hard packed earth,
candlelight flickers, scanning each wall
and surface whether glistening with the grease
of warfare or patched with the rough burlap
of sturdy sack and trade.

Some beat their chests,
some cower by the bullocks.
Every shadow hewn and splayed.

Eurydice asks Ophelia,
"Should I translate this
under water or under earth?"

Ophelia turns to Hamlet,
"Am I not tender? Do I not wash over
the skin like holy water?"

Hamlet turns to Zeus,
"How much control do you really have?
Is every charge mundane or do you jump
at the sheer snap of every bolt?"

Zeus turns to Hera,
"Must we always choose
matriarch or patriarch?"

Hera turns to Eurydice,
"Always send the reader under earth.
If you stay on top there is nowhere to go.
Except down, of course."

On the other side of the room
Daphne tests, "We are revisionists."
wrapping her lips around every prodigious sound.
Unsatisfied with the taste of it,
she keeps clacking away on her trusty Ticonderoga.

"Did you know?" she asks Apollo,
"poet laureate comes from bay laurel
which was wreathed upon winners
each every Olympic games?"
Apollo isn't paying attention, nods, hums.
"No one remembers," Daphne laments,
"the origins of things
or the loss-side of battles."

A few minutes later Apollo falls asleep
under the boughs of a new laurel.
It's inevitable, this falling asleep...
a daily end we're all fated for.