Apollo, you froze
as the sunlight of your eyes grew cold
the lyre, smashed across these cobblestone streets of Epidaurus
where you sought sanctuary
when the flowing melodies ceased as water in hard frost, unlike before
the day you remembered this place yielded no crops
in refuge of quiet, inquisitive starlight as you looked up
for once in your life.
Do you mend the sores of your intuition?
Your moral infection, rampant, plaguing the shoe less mendicant
when the bow became the archway to your temple of wax
and the arrow you left behind, atop the mangled olive tree
the one the muses grew bored of pursuing, on your behalf
before you knew if you had anything to give to your son
before you knew of Daphne, and how it would feel to watch her leaves depart her person.
And I recite what I see for when I close my eyes I see fear, instead of the tomorrows hidden in your eyelids.
The city waited for you to rise
and I also waited to see if you could heal yourself, you shining oracle:
be fearless again.
