The death of Mother

                breaking into the water; intruding
                in an element with no love
                so men are fooled and drowned.
                       Artie Gold, 1947-2007

She's changed her human appearance
several times

        (in these waters
        her apathy bumps against the clatter
        of a wine-dark sea)

and yet,
a conjurer of great skill,
         “illusionist”,
attributes her bad luck to
the men she slept with

Because she lied,
she was transformed:
        the rank of goddess
        sexual servant,
                    the space in-between

“I've driven veracity from rocks
crushed beneath the weight of
water

have tried to disclose
the suffocations
        of death,
it's heavy alter of the eye:
the true development of stasis.”

The sea responds in a gush of
curlicue.

You'd think she had
the backbone of Medea
upon the wailing rocks

         joyless hands around her
         sons

         near mountains
         out of their minds.