Ghazal of the Fiftieth Danaid

Sisters, infernal virgins, would you kill again,
Knowing the endless sieves you would refill again?

Night is where the day’s mistakes repeat,
I swallow the bitter crumb, the sleeping pill again.

Isn’t the womb the sieve, the moon the spring
From which blood’s phases rise, and fill, and spill again?

I carried thrice, bore twice, and once I grieved
And shouldered my vessel up the morning’s hill again.

Dawn is a murderess; her hands stained pink.
She slips in guiltily over the windowsill again.

The arsenic hour – the argument resumes;
Our heated words, then silence’s smooth chill again.

November, and the leaves flush red with shame:
It’s just the autumn, draining the chlorophyll again.

The night sky is the hull of a sinking boat.
Stars are the silver holes that drill and thrill again.

Beauty leaks away, the face burns hot, 
Youth is the liquor no one can distill again.

I steep and brew a bitter wakefulness:
The kitchen’s nowhere engine whistles shrill again.

At fifty, the matron turns from the fickle moon
And is not subject to Her tyrant will again.

Perhaps it’s stalling, flipping the hour glass:
I watch today’s gold grains tick down to nil again.