Twice he falls, the first from Thessaly.

It leaves a crater in the marble dust;

two eagle feathers drift over his 

eyes, the fossils of

lost wings.

A catamite no longer, his golden curls

are tawny gray.

He has aged since he

last walked, last

unfurled his tongue to talk. 

Something seeps from his sagging skin;

it looks like mead, but might it be 

relief? 

The sweetness of air—he breathes like he eats,

takes in the moss crawling on the ruins,

scars on a lost forever

like the talons on his back.

The word barren is not what it once was

to him: 

it is the starvation of fine horses

and the strength

of wedding silver.

In the last of the aching sun, 

he wanders and celebrates

what was lost forever 

to him.

Such it is until he falls again, this time

by the shore. It is a trade:

eagle feathers for seashells,

the sky and stars

for a chance to sink.

The watery evening sprawls 

into his artery iron

as the sea slowly stops

his quiet and lonely heart.