Cassandra’s Testimony After Apollo’s Kiss

After the kiss I glowed, his brilliance burning, his spittle
sizzling my cells so that every atom in me became a
telescopic hole of knowing, and everybody's future
was a luster aching under my skin ringing, ringing
with the cacophony of worlds at their beginning
and at their end.

After the kiss every word and pronouncement
that flew from my bedazzled tongue
became a diaphanous utterance of disbelief.
My brain radiated rage and sorrow,
to be such a vessel of knowledge no one could
acknowledge, to be a blind bird lurching
towards the sea. Do not deceive a god, do not recoil
from his fiery hands or he might disrobe and then kiss you
with a curse.

And yet, burdened with the truth, glistering
with secret revelations, still I stand under the stars, a star myself, dead thing echoing, echoing lost proclamations, agonizing warnings all in vain, an etheric wraith, white beacon whispering into the always ancient wind
an anthem of eternal wisdom, the gift of redemption
that was in fact my only reason for being:
that you might learn to see as I see,
and believe.