Hera and Heracles (Part 1) (8)

Scorned wife, wide in your eye sights,
set a rolling stone down the mountain
where your son was never born.

Sixty-eight knots in her clothes, and cross-
legged on the hearth, womb squeezing
with violent heaves until a tongue loosens her distress.

You thought you’d rid yourself of his suckling,
didn’t you?  And what to think, knowing he nursed
on your breast, and where was your Athena?

But the delay has already been, he is no
High King, and for the next dozen deaths
there won’t be any pounding in your envy.

(Except for your little vampire-pets,
sent down to his chamber, where he sits
with his brother and plays with the knots in their throats.)

And Alcides, Alcides, don’t spell your love
in the dirt, it’s already spelled in your newly-
bestowed title, Heracles, but you are no son to her!