At Delphi I prayed 
to Apollo
that he maintain in me
the flame of the poem

and I drank of the brackish
spring there, dazed by the
gong beat of the sun,
mistaking it,

as I shrank from the eagle’s 
black shadow crossing
that sky of cruel blue,
for the Pierian Spring–

and soon after
vomited my moussaka
and then my guts writhed
for some hours with diarrhea

until at dusk 
among the stones of the goatpaths
breathing dust
I questioned my faith, or

within it wondered
if the god mocked me.
But since then, though it flickers or 
shrinks to a

blue bead on the wick,
there’s that in me that
burns and chills, blackening
my heart with its soot,

flaring in laughter, stinging 
my feet into a dance, so that
I think sometimes not Apollo heard me
but a different god.