Delphi

By Ella Truesdale

When my legs first turned to stone

I could not cry out nor gasp.

A proud marble column crumbled

Lively wood rotted to ash.

I have come back home from Foloi

Back to the land of the dead.

Where I triumphed as the living

Where they stared at me in dread.

I think I am a shadow now

Though I once dwelt in a shining haze.

Expelled in shock from a soft womb

Then grown up under the doctors' gaze.

Poked and prodded with scalpels

I retreat to caves that downtown lie.

Where the lights are of my own making

There is no god here but I.

I will never walk with the living again

Never conjure up the same shine.

Yet having built my throne of chrome steel

I realize that I do not mind.

Soon the crowds beg for my name

Kings and queens kneel at my shrine.

I am but an oddity of life

At the same time I am divine.

Because my words are diamonds

My hands are silvered rust

I birth myself from ashes

My mind reformed from dust.

My stone legs are temple pillars

Hades' men worship my very cry

For though this day my body shattered

I became a goddess inside.