A God Threw Me Away
Sasha Jovanovski

_____________________one day
When I did open up her fist
And find therein a writhing creature
Curled beneath her veil of mist

Believe you me, I was her man
With faith to shake the marble beams
That roofed the heads of other gods—
I built her temples in my dreams

So when I grasped her hand in mine
To shake like heroes, eye to eye
My mind was forward, not below
The taste of vengeance sharp nearby

But then she spat, she cursed aloud—
I cried, My lady, what mistake?
Methought she feared for me, her charge
As if I’d flee a woodland snake

Then suddenly I felt the thrall
Like icy venom piercing fast
Through all my bronze, at ev’ry joint
Erasing me from first to last

Till I was standing side by side
With something that resembled me
But only knew that one dread thought:
That but for them, I’d now be free

The god forsook me without pain—
Her other hero still did live—
She seized his scruff and bade him watch
Me do what she could not forgive

But it was her, she swung the blade
I watched it in grim ekstasis
I drowned in wells of blood she drew
So now, disgraced, I beg you this:

Be careful when you hear him say
(Some decorated Grecian lord)
That mighty Ajax lost his mind
And fell upon his kingly sword