The Voyeur and the Harpy

[milo]

you ask to see all of me

perhaps you imagine yourself as the breeze
whose fingers will stir colour from the brooding lake
and paint it into clouds

silent in the silt there are
rusted, twisted skeletons of shopping trolleys,
half a Datsun, someone’s dream of bliss in a wrought-iron bedhead
and I, who will need more than the six seeds you offer
to slough this season’s skin

breezes do not reach the pipes that breathe
excreta into algal blooms, red as the storm that rends
mother from child

you ask, but you
have no desire to discover
that here is no fire to purify,
only eternal decay
and someone else’s idea
of how to shape a life

I don't have time right now and this is going to take a lot of time, but know that it isn't sitting here unnoticed.

The narrator seems to be either Demeter or Persephone, but I am having a difficult time resolving which. I will get back after I have had a dozen or so more reads.

Still the language is thick, the references are rich and multitudinous, even if I didn't love it, I would love reading it over and over.