Don’t Look Back: A Prose Poem
Wednesday Prose Poem: Orpheus unbound
Don’t look back — I came alone but we’re leaving them behind, Hades, Persephone, whoever else — I wasn’t looking that close, eyes that followed only one of the dead, iron shade of the bite on her ankle — what song did I just sing back there?
Don’t look back — they let us return, but couldn’t just send us up top the way they go there — guitar strapped to my back, lacquered wood body sticking to skin — fluid hand reaching out behind me — but backwards is some certainty, right?
Don’t fucking look back — my clothes must have burnt off — I want that hand to be warm, to be flesh, I want some end to this darkness — supposed to be light again, heart lighter, fingers finding rhyme for a new song — without so much poison to the back —
Sweat in my palm, Eurydice’s or mine — but I haven’t looked back — this is the way we were told to go — how did I get down here…must have forgotten that part, that verse — opening like a mouth, like a volcano — this is the way to hands together again —really
Don’t come back — don’t get bitten, Pan keep us safer — damned snakes and the venom comes cursing us all — lighting passion like kindling — ash before coals —let’s not come back here for years yet, love —
