aquila (unbound), by Jessica Franken

Drawing, by Frans Snyders (Flemish) 1610

aquila (unbound)
​
didn’t look at his eyes
the first five thousand years
i pulled his body
into my stomach
and his protein
turned my bronze form
feathered

taste of char
and fennel first
then later chalk
(he wanted 
to become
the mountain)

i consumed the
gland of anger i
forgot which
hate was his
(this is what 
they made me for
give me my hunger)

some days
some decades
i ate the organ entire
stayed all day
grew thick eggs
bile-nourished daughters
to replace me 
when i died but
i kept not dying

some days
some decades
i quick-ripped a lobe
retched it out
over black sea i
was busy i
had daughters i
hoped he was not 
lonely

(he should try
to become
something
weaker)

we had to wait
for the arrow
that would
make us stars
(i was also bound)
so all we could do
was sprout power
from spilled blood
twin-stemmed blossoms
for the children to find

we were partners in this
(you always think 
of us together)
from his ichor
we made witches
to avenge us

let me be sidereal
we were saying
let me decompose
in the sky

Jessica Franken

Jessica Franken is an essayist, poet, and intermittent fiction writer living in Minneapolis. She has work published or forthcoming in River Teeth, The Cincinnati Review, Great Lakes Review, FERAL: A Journal of Poetry and Art, and Bitch magazine, among others.

Prometheus Bound, by Peter Paul Rubens and Frans Snyders (Flemish) 1612