The wick lies fallow; the cavern’s air stale;
the guardian’s hiss silent.
She lies tangled, sleeping for some fifty years.
Her rattle a lady in waiting.
Her fangs safely tucked until the sacred initiation:
a stumbling fool, me, beaten black and blue,
falls headlong into her den.
She strikes; the number of man.
My eyes, my cheeks, my lips.
Stunned and marked, I collapse
ready for the pyre;
ready to become
the my own torch of Hades.
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