Styx
You, pulled from suicide
you, dwindling with disease
you who leaked honor on the grass of the battlefield
are moated inside, and there is no leaving.
You who passed over the coils of its tar
won’t cross again, grazing its flow with your hem.
You, swollen with piety
you, snuffed before standing
have come in and remain. You rest like rocks.
The slather of black foam clots its banks
carved as deep as a knife through meat
in the thick earth where men walked blind
until its maw gaped beneath, swallowing and sealing.
You, leaving age like a loosed cocoon
you who knew your way in by touch
sleep safe within its nine wide circles,
inside the scabbed worm-rings of its scar.
