I admit with reluctance:
whenever the primordial couple
gags and blindfolds their prettiest daughter,
you appear before me brighter than ever.
With trepidation I wonder how
you would see me, had you known
that your presence sends forth a light
as blinding as a justification for pain.
You move
like a free being. You move
like you’ve never been in chains,
like you satisfy thirst with nectar,
like you were destined from birth
to return from a katabasis
likely to be denied me.
By night
I become winds roaring
against bolts of lead,
the shattering screams of metal scraping
on rock sends showers of rubble
rushing through my prison as I push
Tantalus-like, against mountains that thrive
on protest.
By day
I become the bolts, I, the mountains,
I, a half-formed god, Freya
if you kiss my right cheek, but Hel
if you kiss my left.
Listen closely to the bards and you will learn
that a creature molded in love but abandoned half way
invariably gives in
to tyranny.
By day I am
the Bad Half of Aeolus, gorging myself
on the nectar that poisons me, master
of the art of reining in
but not of letting go.