SEMELE

“Fuck me like you fuck your wife.”


so bright it was a darkness, so bright it was sound.


I said the words to Jove. He who’d come to me before, he who’d been inside my body, he who’d had a wife forever. He who’d made me pregnant. I wanted to see who he was. I wanted to see what he was. (There are some things you should not see. There are some things you should not know.) I looked into the black wall of light and saw the nothings that were there, only absence all around me. “Let me feel the truth of you.” He thought he was so mighty. A light so bright it was emptiness. Oh, I realized, oh of course, you do not fuck your wife. And then, as fast as that, I was only ash.