A Mother to Demeter

Genre: Poetry


(Preface: Wrecked by dispair and taking the form of an womanly crone, Demeter sits down to rest near the Parthenion well, where she is approached by the mortal Queen Metaneira. The Queen treats the disguised goddess sympathetically and invites her to come to the Palace, where she needs a nanny for her young son. Offered hospitality, Demeter refuses wine, but accepts a drink called kykeion. Queen Meaneira pities the `woman' and gives her employment. Demeter anoints the Queen's boy child, Demophon, every evening with ambrosia, and puts the baby in the fire of the hearth to burn away its mortality. But one evening Metaneira spies on Demeter and interrupts the rite. Demeter drops the child in surprise, resumes her divine form, and rebukes Metaneira for interfering with divine secrets which would have made the baby immortal.)


Nowheres is as no one knows,
And we found her – D’meter, my Old Man and me.
Sad, yes. And wandering factory streets
Hopin’ to run into
What she once ran into and knew,
Surer than anything, ev’n the Bible:

She lost her, her little girl, we think to a bad man – a red cloak.
She spoke with frothy words – her tongue punching.
(musta been crack or smack, or somethin’).

We took her in, still
(we had the bread to spare).

And I turn to my child,
I says’
Wounds to the body are for the body to fix.
Skin must cover and bury,
In time, in private,
Where knives once went deeper
Than flesh was thick.

It’s a killing thought,
More th’n anythin’
(more th’n nowheres)
Oh, it pounds me.

And th’n I catch ‘er.
How dare she?

“Take my child out
of the fire,
You bitch!

You, pure gold whore!”

I’ve a fighting spirit.
My child is not no stone.

And she looks back up at me,
Tells me she’s doin’ me a favor,
Turnin’ him gold.

But I’ve a fighting spirit.
And my child is not no stone.