Two Figments, by Jay Jacoby

The Rape of Proserpina, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italy). 1622,

Two Figments

They are neighbours.  Sisters in distress.
Prey.  Pursued.  Possessed.
(Gods will be gods).
Exiled to the dark underworld.
Transformed into bark, leaves and berries.
Commissioned by the Cardinal.
Proserpina and Daphne.
Icons chiseled into messages.
Dynamic monuments
To fear and astonishment.
 
They do not know who or where they are.
They do not know how or why they got here.
They are speechless.  We do not know their thoughts.
Their stories are not theirs.  Their stories belong to us.
We are ravaged.  We are imprinted. We are messaged.
We stroll past in wonder, nodding our acceptance.
They’ve been appropriated and imagined.
We’ve been abducted.
We are held hostage.

Jay Jacoby

Jay Jacoby is a retired professor of English, having spent most of his career at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Now retired, "I can fully engage in my passion for non-academic poetry and prose and teaching what I really want to teach in a life-long learning centre."   His poetry has been published in The Asheville Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Light, Cold Mountain Review, and Savannah Literary Journal.  

Apollo and Daphne, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Italy). 1622-1625.