Asha

Knowing you cannot be caged
Knowing I cannot cage anything that sings,
I open myself to the energy of your wings
And the edicts of Mnemosyne, your mother.

But, Erato, I do not want to enrage you:
My ordeal is that you will not sing on cue
To me anymore, you will flit back
To your mountaintop, and frown
Down on me as I struggle to make a verse,
Finish a bloody stanza, and laugh
Behind a thin translucent hand,

“See: he is nothing, a human wreck and mess
Without me. His brain is clay unless
I carve rivulets of color, faces,
Sounds, improbabilities, and places
Into it. He loved me when he was younger
But now he has abandoned me for flesh,
Flesh deciduous. I may not return to him
For that. He uses words like “relationship”
Asks me a rhyme for “unconditional”
And “poly-amorous” great gods deliver me
From this abuse of Greek and Eros.
From this unplatonic fleshly fool.”

Dear Muse, just hold your fire:
I hear and love you. But Muses are liars.
Don’t stint and count your inspiration.
Don’t lecture her on Greek being best,
English a corrupt and bastard tongue.
She doesn’t care about you. She never will.
Aphrodite gave you me, not you to me.
But here’s the deal: It's your responsibility
To give me words perverse, my angel, or be disgraced
Among the gods that gave her me.
And gave me you and gave us poetry.