Nurse :: Muse

flip my pillow
over baby
           and let me feel
           your shading tree
cradle my brain-
pan with one hand
           while the other
           one does the deed

rip the bandage
from my body
           change the damage
           sop up the dream
so distract me
with your singing
           that you don’t ring
           a tear from me

grip my ankles
with your let-down
           hair and phantom
           some quickening
there remember
feathered Hermes
           was fashioned in
           the shadows of

a cripple’s dancing
fire

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Hephaestus was the Greek god of craftsmen, fire, and volcanoes. His Roman counterpart was Vulcan. In addition to making the armour of Achilles, the girdle of Aphrodite, the chariot of Helios, and the bow and arrows of Eros, he also fashioned the winged sandals (talaria) and helmet (petasos) of Hermes (Mercury). He says of himself in the Odyssey, Book VIII: “I was crippled from birth” (ἐγώ γε ἠπεδανὸς γενόμην).