i.
when I saw golden-haired Leto
coursing over land and froth
I knew she went with my death
nestled beneath her golden heart:
the Far-shooter who would kill me.
indeed, he fought me for my stone-crowned isle
fought me for the wine-sweet paeans
sung for me
fought me to rename me for
my death
as though such a name
Python, "I rot"
would render my end
absolute
oh, true: in the sun
I rotted
food for insects
hollowed to a sheath!
so all that remained of me
was a plaything for the breeze
but—putrefaction
could not exorcise me
from Delphi
he struck me down but I remain
in Delphi
he seized my land but I remain
in Delphi
he thought me gone but I remain
in the fissure
beneath his garish temple
susurrating from below
of things he does not know.
a politician
Phoebus Apollo feigns a smile
and strums his golden lyre
veiling his unease
but he knows his Delphi
suffers a haunting
ii.
meanwhile
a slight girl or a bent crone
perches like a sparrow upon a tripod,
his poppet
he thinks
and fruit for the plucking
each in turn
I tend from below,
me the phantom breeze
that beguiles
and lays the cosmos bare,
the past and future tangled
then uncoiling
like a serpent in her lair.
in the pythia's palm
I rest my spectral head
whispering ghost words
that hang
like incense
in the salt-sweet dark.
the pythia listens
slack-jawed, her hand
a poppy blooming upon her knee
and she tries to speak
but what she hears
words don't contain easily.
she mutters glossolalia
till vision takes root in word
and she's struck
with weird clarity of speech
and pronounces what will be.
it's for me
that each girl, each crone
casts aside the Bright One
a refused lover
who does not, after all,
love her
iii.
mortals seek my wisdom
but Phoebus claims as his
the felicity
of my foresight
he tells tall tales
of his forced possessions,
his false prescience
and hides his shame
in pretty songs, golden arrows, and light
he tiptoes
through his gaudy temple
so as not to trouble
my slumber,
he an actor
in his own garish play,
and later recites loudly
so no one hears
the phantom
whispering
to him
his lines—
me, Python,
coiled over darkness
in the wings