he told me once, loved wooden toys. When
he visited, he filled my palace with his small gifts.
Once, I asked him about his brother, my father,
but his eyes darkened with something
unnamed and he stormed out of my halls.
The next day I found a carefully crafted
eagle sitting over the fireplace.
A gift, an explanation or an apology?
Perhaps all three.
The Grief Abated as I Grew Older
But something else took its place:
a wish, a curiosity, call it a thirst.
It came from the knowledge left to me
by Charon.
All things have a purpose.
Not every purpose is good.
In my palace, all alone,
the more I thought about this,
the more my need grew to know
what he meant.
Time passed so slowly for immortals,
but it did pass. In Styx’s waters
I saw my body was growing,
my childhood escaping from me.
I was a lonely child.
Lonely in ways I had never been
inside my mother’s home.
I felt her absence sharply.
Like an eagle’s talon lodged
inside my heart, a constant wound.
