Orpheus returns
from the Hades Carnival
alone and empty-handed,
only to spend another life cycle
below ground seeking an entry
to the underworld and for his beloved’s
satyr-harried specter drifting always
beyond his reach.

He wanders, his acoustic alive
in his hands; he strums and tongues
the type of love that would raise the dead,
were their ears not stoppered
by the droning of their own regrets.

Orpheus would die if he could
in this unending sepulcher.
He floats on his back in the watery ether
of the Acheron, alongside bouquets
of Persephonean black orchids
waiting for destiny’s lottery to select
him again for some new light.

Again, he endures a womb,
a soaked and traumatic birth,
suckling and swaddled at the brown,
freckled breast of a woman
who has never heard of Hades.

Orpheus is reborn and reborn
and reborn, until the name Eurydice
becomes merely another lyric in his song.

-Bianca Spriggs,
How Swallowtails Become Dragons
(Accents Publishing)