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.