Thanks to Jeffrey Epstein, I Believe
in gods of money,
that they live on high
in great, ungovernable
pantheons, drop down
like hawks, take our young
in their royal claws, helpless,
into overstuffed nests,
that gods keep wives
who rage, who wait,
or help them hunt,
that gods have no one
party, no one country,
that they throw golden
apples in our midst
to make us war
forever in their name,
that we’re lost at sea
after they burn our villages,
that we’re turned away
at the very borders
we construe at their bidding,
that we hide in basements
hands over babies’ mouths
lest we be found
for their crying, that gods reap
gold from our hate, their bond,
the bloodbond of rape,
their language from the book
of rape, their rich potency
pumped hour by hour
with rape, that their victims
are sisters of Cassandra
and Daphne, that to escape,
we must change our religion
or be turned into trees.