Unmasked

What is there to do
now that the allusion has dropped
the mask fallen to the floor?

When the clear, clarion
calls of prayer
bring to mind nothing but the gape-throated calves–
bleeding and baying.
When the air
once brine-sweet     all rosemary and lilac
is so heavy with smoke.

What do you do when the god has been fed–
and all that’s left are empty
husks,
and the promise of a future hunger?

What do you do when the story ends–
not because of fate, or war, or wrath–
                                                                                    but because of the slow rotting of an empire?
A creeping, sneaking sickness.

Now that milk and honey words curdle in your stomach,
and I beg for a taste of fermented breath.

I tried so hard to write a better ending,
    but that’s never how it goes. Sorry.
Orpheus always turns his head,
                            Dido always builds her own pyre.
That’s what makes a good story–
    futility, fate, love.
          Always love.

They way Ovid tells it Eurydice doesn’t blame Orpheus
for turning around.
    What could she complain of,
        except that she had been loved?
Well–
dying, for one.
While he gets to keep on singing,
               and singing.


Writing the same story over and over and over,
and still expecting a different ending.
                        Isn’t that the definition of a tragedy?
The only creature more defined by hubris than the hero is the poet.

But still we are back again–
in Troy, in Carthage, in Rome.
And still there is love,
    and still it is not enough.

Ronan Thompson is a 20 year old poet passed out of Ohio. He is currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in English and Ancient Studies at Ohio Wesleyan University, and has previously been published in the University’s publication The Trident. You can find him on Instagram @wilber.ave.