Meme: grotty old juvenalia

[tocryabout]

Really am expecting the next chapter to be done tonight. For serious.

I couldn't resist this meme, though, since the_red_shoes and I apparently both had fixations on Alexander the Great.

I Know My Father

Who was my father?

Don't tell anyone--
I remember my youth
summers of dawn at Golden Lake
when the sun pierced silver
through the clouds,
like a flashbulb
(I closed my eyes)
and it speared down on the water,
looking
for fish.

Found none, reflected off
a coin in the weeds:
profile of Alexander, barely human anymore
with his medusa hair,
his curling horns
the ruler of Egypt is transmuted
man to god to metal--

I knew then
and I know now
what that means.

The light fell off his face.
It hung glistering in rain wet air
for one moment, one,
before black clouds
swept over me, pricking with heat
and I fainted.

I was in a phase where I thought it was better to just avoid the point rather than risk being unsubtle.