Gold
A shower of gold? Old Zeus?
That’s the village gossip
except I saw her
legs wide to the sun. Well,
we’ve all been there, haven’t we, girls?
And if a passing goatherd happened to linger
in a jangle of leaping bells
what do you expect?
It was the god, the thunder maker,
belly swollen,
smile sly as Silene.
We believe what we want to believe:
bulls, swans, satyrs, fire, gold.
Never the fisherman’s son
with harpoon grey eyes,
himself sired by Poseidon
as they’d have it. Not by
that slate-eyed merchant whose golden silks
rustle and kiss your skin
like the touch of a god.
Antoinette Moses is an award-winning author and playwright who lived in Greece in the seventies and returns every year. The Crone Replies (from which this poem is taken) is currently being translated into Greek to be published soon. Her website is www.blackcranepress.co.uk