faded gold and green striped wallpaper
A cart with some leftover baguettes and mineral water
stood outside someone’s door
but no one was there
The only sound was the ice machine down the hall
The city so strangely quiet
Everyone was away, where it was cool and dry
The rain had stopped
“I’m sorry,” I said, letting his hand drop
“No, it’s not you”
“I shouldn’t have assumed anything after so long”
“It’s not you…I just…it’s been a hard time”
I nodded and stood on tiptoe to kiss
his cheek without touching him
He steadied me with his hands
They were huge and bony
Most men’s hands
are not bigger than mine
“Do you want to come in and talk?”
I turned on the lamp
He sat in the large cream damask chair by the window
The lights from the city shone in, fuzzy with the rain
I sat on the bed
“I would like to stay with you tonight,” Eros said
“Just tonight
Then I have to leave”
I could feel my throat closing with tears
But what is real?
Maybe Eros and I stayed a month
a year
Who is to say?
Maybe we are still there now
When our lips touched
our clothes fell away
dissolving from our bodies
the white peony dress scattered its petals on the carpet
underwear disintegrating like cobwebs
Eros lifted me onto his hips
and I wrapped my legs around him as he fell
back into the cream damask chair
we kept falling as if through shifting
clouds
I could feel him inside of me
and that is how I awoke from the sleep of deadly beauty
After, we bathed in a tub that became the sea
with liquid topaz water and a beach of pulverized pearls
and we swam there and made love again
Then we ordered room service at midnight
ate omelets and grapes and bread in our bed
and the bed became an island
—covered with aphrodisiac flowers—
where we slept until late in the morning
Every day
I put on one of the dresses from Aphrodite’s sample rack
And we ordered books and films and food
brought to the room
We lay in bed
reading and eating and memorizing each other’s bodies
We wrote a play together based on his book
In the evenings we danced on the rose-covered carpet—
our ballroom
It went on like this for a day
a month
a year
I still don’t know
I know only
that when Eros finally left I had his child inside of me
That was what made it possible for me to release him
even after the sacrifices I had made
even after waiting for so long
Do you want to know the name of the child
of Love and the Soul?
This is her name:
Her name is Joy
Eros
The house was built on the side of the hill, so it seemed perpetually to be sliding off. It was mostly glass so that one could see wooded hills and smoggy skies from almost every room. Eros’s mother had decorated the house all in purple. There were purple velvet couches and chairs with purple silk beaded pillows, purple Persian carpets, giant purple candles and huge natural amethysts reflecting the light that poured through the windows. There was a terraced garden that Eros had planted with banks and banks of lavender, hyacinth, pansies and hydrangea—with pennies buried at their roots to make them the right color—and little fountains and statues of Eros’s naked mother hidden among the foliage.
Eros was not unhappy. But as he grew older his mother began to suffocate him with her love. She couldn’t help it. She had never loved anyone as much as herself before. No one had seemed perfect enough. He was perfect. But he felt as if he couldn’t breathe. People acted strangely around him. They saw his face, smelled his skin and hair or touched his hand and something happened to them. It was as if all their senses were coming to life. It was too much for Eros sometimes. All that wanting.
He read the myths and learned that the god of love is not only the son of love and beauty but the son of chaos.
Eros felt empty, as if he had no soul. So he went looking for her.
He didn’t have to go far. It was his mother who led him to her.
“My boyfriend’s daughter goes to your school,” she said. “She’s featured in every single damn film. You should introduce yourself.”
Psyche was the long-legged girl who kept her head bent as if to hide her face with her black hair. She always seemed so sad. He tried to talk to her but she wouldn’t look at him. She hurried past in her odd dresses.
Eros could not help himself. He found out where she lived and he crawled in her window one night. He knew she was the part of him that was missing but he didn’t know how to explain it to her. He thought that if she saw him she would send him away. Is beauty monstrous?
His mother said, “I heard that girl I told you about eats boys alive. She likes them really good-looking to feed her ego. Then she dumps them. You’re so sensitive, sweetie. It’s a beautiful quality. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
When his soul finally lit the candle he felt betrayed, but he would have stayed anyway. It was she that sent him away. Afraid that she was not enough.
Eros packed his things and left. He traveled across the country. He shaved his head and ate only rice and vegetables until he lost so much weight that every bone showed. He practiced yoga and chanted. He went to museums and read books and saw films. He did not touch anyone. His skin broke out and he lay in the sun to burn away the red bumps. This left shadowy scars on his cheeks. He was called a freak more than once. Love is freakish to those who fear it. He was beaten up and his nose was broken. Love is a threat.
This was all right with Eros. Eros did not want to be a god. He wanted to be a man. A writer would be nice, too.
Eros wrote about the girl who was his soul and in this way he felt his soul inside of him. He sent the book to his well-connected mother who sent it to her publisher friend. There was really only one reason Eros wanted the book to be published.
It was like writing a letter and putting it in a bottle and sending it out to sea.
Eros’s mother had not told him about her new employee, the girl he had lost.
When he found her again he wanted to stay forever in that hotel room in the deserted city. He never wanted to leave her. But he was afraid that she would leave him. That she still felt she was not enough.
He might have tried, though.
Joy changes everything.
I awaited Joy in our tiny cottage
I made little films for my unborn daughter, little myths
Girls were transformed into flowers, trees and birds
but they always came back—
better singers, more fragrant, full of the earth’s power
I stopped working for Aphrodite
I was afraid she might turn me into something
and not turn me back
There were other available slaves and witches to help her
and when you are about to become a mother
you just can’t take as many chances
Even so, secretly, I wept for Eros
Part of me wished I had remained a flower
Passive, trembling in the sunshine
closing with the darkness
Waiting for some bee to pollinate me
It would ha
ve been easier than being a woman
much easier than being a mother
But I couldn’t have stayed with Love
Although he had become a man he was still a god to me
And I?
I was a mere mortal
I was not a goddess
After I gave birth to Joy something changed, though
something I could not have predicted
There in the hospital room
I held her to my breast
and she took my nipple into her mouth
she looked up at me with long, still eyes
too large for her face
her fingers wrapped around mine
there was no one else in the world
Then I knew I could live without Love as a man
I had taken him inside me
and given him back to the world
in the form of a girl
I was hers—
my daughter’s—
I was divine
Demeter
They say we turn into our mothers
When my daughter became Persephone
I was Demeter
Just because I had loved Hades
doesn’t mean I was prepared
when my child found her own hell god
He had one white eye and his nails and his teeth
were filed to points
Sometimes he wore plastic breasts on his bony chest
or a plastic phallus over leather pants
He wailed about carnage in a raspy voice
This is the one who took her from me
All I can think of is how, when she was a baby
she cried for me all the time
I was the only one she wanted
When I held her I didn’t even need my hands
She clung to my neck with her arms
to my waist with her legs like a little animal
She slept in my armpit, her mouth on my nipple all night
It was the only way she would sleep
We woke in each other’s sweat
She smelled like little white flowers
and baby soap and me—my milk
I had never been so important
to anyone
I felt as if I could make the world blossom
I had
I had made the world bloom with her
Then he came with his teeth
his nails painted black, his rubber clothes
his one eye behind a white lens like a blind man
He smelled of sulfur
He had a metallic gold limousine
and a driver with white gloves
This is the one who took my daughter away
I remember how we spent our days together
We had picnics with the dolls
on a red-and-white-checked cloth in the garden
ate off their china tea set
the tiny, bitter strawberries that grew in the clay pot
miniature carrots, tomatoes and sprigs of mint
drank homemade lemonade from seashells
We filled the birdbath with rose petals
and watched their reflection on the water
We painted our faces with rainbows
and wore giant heart-shaped rings
and wings
of gauze
We went to the library and read books
about baby animals
searching for their mothers
We sang songs of tiny stars, lambs, cakes
What was I thinking?
That this would be enough for her forever?
My mother had hoped the same thing
She had been wrong
My daughter screamed, “You’d say that about any man.
No one is good enough unless he’s exactly like you.”
She left the house
I want to believe that he put a spell on her
bit her
drugged her somehow
forcibly carried her away on his black motorcycle
But she went by herself
They broke glasses just to hear them shatter
and tore sheets with their hands
like animals with claws
They stayed up all night watching videos of him
dressed as a schoolgirl
His pieces
were about children killing each other with machine guns
about rape and explosions
bodies falling from burning buildings
People blamed him for inciting more of these things
but she said, “He is just a shy kid who was beaten up in
high school. A poet. He re-created himself to point out
the hypocrisy. He sees the world the way it is. You
pretend none of this exists. You live in a dream.”
I wanted my dream
I wanted, more than anything
to make a dream and give it to her
to live in, always
But I didn’t try to hide her from the world
She wasn’t happy at school so I taught her at home. I took her to foreign movies, gave her all kinds of books. I let her wear lipstick and nail polish from the health food store, although I told her she didn’t need it. I let her go to parties, even. I even let her go to that performance of his. I wasn’t too strict. I didn’t cause this, did I? I just wanted her to be happier than I was.
My own father swallowed me
and then vomited me back up
I blame him for what happened to her
If he had loved us she would never have gone away
with the god of hell
And I would not have needed my Hades
Or maybe it is my fault
I doubted myself
I let her real father go away twice
When she left I sat in the garden and lit a cigarette
smoked half of it and let it drop
thinking I could make a small pyre
a performance piece, almost
But the fire started to spread
After the fire department came
I felt guilty, of course
All those nice, strong men
who risked their lives to help people
Not clean up after some crazy, grieving mother
The ground was scarred and barren
She was gone
for taking her from me
I will never grow another seedling
I will shrivel up in the darkness
and the flowers all die with me
Then one day I went to see
my daughter’s Hades
He lived in a dark palace with iron gates and fierce dogs
A huge bald man let me in
He was smiling to himself, I knew
Smirking
Another mother trying to drag her stray child back home
He didn’t think I was anyone to fear
I had not been a goddess before Persephone was born
Now I was a goddess enraged, protecting my child
A slender young man came down the staircase
He spoke softly and asked if I wanted a drink
I fingered the knife in my pocket
had imagined this moment so differently
Facing the hell god, slitting his throat
slaying him, bringing her home in my arms
All my fury at fathers and gods
would make me invincible
Instead I just stood there
looking at him with his soft unwashed hair
his stubbled chin and two blue eyes
like my daughter’s eyes
He played the piano for me
a bunch of narcissus, white in a vase
The smell made me swoon, so I steadied myself
He sang of a mother and child
looked up at me, grinning, and said
“I could never put this on an album, though.
Reputations involved her
e”
She came down the stairs, in his shirt
Her legs so small and bare
When she saw me she looked
as if I were her hell
Then he reached out for her
took her in his arms
folded her up
I remembered
how light she once felt
and warm, perfect, safe
I thought
maybe any man who held her would be
like a hell god to me
maybe I can never
give her up
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry for coming here”
I let the knife fall from my fingers back into my pocket
I turned and left her there
I knew that I could never bring her back
The child I wanted to bring back with me was gone
It was winter
I took a bath in the claw-foot tub
and put on a white silk kimono with red poppies
I made corn, squash and garbanzo bean soup
on my hot plate
I watched the film I had rented
about a biker poet in a leather jacket
His wife went to the underworld
and he had to battle Death
who was not a man
but a pale woman with long black hair
I looked at myself in the tiny mirror on the door
I was no longer beautiful
I did not look like a former starlet
but I looked like an artist
a director of small, strange films
someone you could tell your story to in a bar
someone who had borne a daughter
(a perfect daughter)
someone who knew about planting
and pyromania
I looked like someone whose father had almost killed her
whose lovers had almost destroyed her
whose mother had tried to save her