How Things Are Written on the Wall

The fates lead him who will—him who won't they drag.
—Seneca

Locked by her father fast away,
Chaste in a tower built of bronze,
Danaë longed for sunlight in her lap.

Zeus, the god, entered this paternal tomb
And emptied himself into her
Like golden coins. Like summer rain.

Her swollen womb soon birthed
A sturdy boy, a wingèd horse,
A viperous, quite lifeless, head,

And stone and stone and stone.
It also birthed her father, dead.
Should Akrisios instead have wed her

To his stable boy, a thin and sickly lad
Just seventeen, hardly a progenitor
Of Assassin to a King? Who knows?

Not she who spins, nor she who measures out.
Nor even yet the last, whose slice ends all.


Survivor Poetry Contest
Poet's Choice (Free Verse)