Katarina Yuan

Chryseis / Astynome

Apollo: I never prayed
for this, for the men
dying. The last 
guard lost his breath the other day—
left it, a medallion, on my doorstep.
His dangling limbs drew me a corsage in the sand,
his tongue painted sonnets and hymns in wet pants
that ended in gilded-bile promises, vomited
across his chest, chunks of lung
rattling like arrow fire upon the stony beach.
I picked one up, held it close—
I’ll never have a man’s heart, you see,

so I thought a lung may do.
A keepsake. To own another human,
clutch a mumbled syllable of his last testament
and crumble it in my hands.  Blood
seeps through my fingers like the weeping
I never do, I hear at night.
Apollo, the guards before beat

themselves, trying to knock hardened air free
from their bone-barred chests—Pandora releasing
the last demon before Apocalypse wakes. A noose
of staggered gasps clasped each on the neck,
kissed their cheeks sea-red, led them to a final bed
on my doorstep—
a viral lynching for a virgin murdered
alive. Apollo, the first night
I begged for my mother, to see her face.
For forgiveness for breaking, a vase deadened
cold in others’ praying hands, hollowed empty
from holding. Empty. I miss empty. Now, 
their taint is in me.  I own them. Greece
rattles its swords in my lungs.

(Don’t drink, mother, my demons
breed too near. Who has already died
for borrowing my breath?)

I never asked for war, Apollo,
not for your slow arrows raining sweat upon my brow.
Not for the men’s bodies—pressed to mine
or silent upon the ground.  Apollo, plague-father,
ague-doctor:  leave my side.  I beg instead Pandora:
crack my chest wide before my mother finds me.
No Spero can nest inside, in this rot-eaten heart.
Disease climbs up my frame like a vine,
writhes my muscles dry and brittle and vibrating—
driftwood trying to find sweet sky again.
To bud leaves. Caress.
Fever cries my bones to white confession:
I wanted them to feel helpless, to see my pain
written on so many blank faces.
I taste bile—his lips seeping in and out of my own,
fleshy petals seeking, infecting my naive teeth, screaming tongue.
(My father will disown me.)  Pandora—
I reject him now (always) and

myself. Pandora

lungs / taste of morning 
breath brass-hued 
wine / clotted songs 
of human-gods / paving 
the ocean’s door / pandora / my eyes
gape wide because my mouth can’t 
// pandora // 
my diaphragm bows to you scrapes
the floor / to grovel and heave iron-
greased / gravel through my lips / pandora

they’ll say i asked for this

pandora—a moment please—pandora—the sea howls we have a word for orphan, but none for sonless mothers pandora a plague on all our houses if i abandon mine now—