Hnoss
((An exercise in changing a myth.))
My mother once told me
That you were a swine
No, that’s wrong.
Her swine.
She said you were changed
To always be near her
And never to worry
What Daddy saw.
Uncle Freyr knew but he never told
Because you both knew, too
What Grandpa would do
If he ever found out about Her.
Freyr’s Giant was worse than
Anything
You or I
Could ever do.
And even the magic
That she taught to Daddy
He could never see
What was happening.
And she with her kingdom war-dead and he with his
And he thought my beauty was a union of deities.
They were his gift
To her, you know.
She kept half
And he kept her.
Even when every time he left
She cried tears of red gold.
She stayed with him
Even so.
Because of you.
Because of me.
Because of the offering.
But not because of the love, which she held most dear.
That’s what we were for.
And now, every time she travels
In her cart
Pulled by her lioncats
She knows.
All her love for,
All her attraction to,
All her battles of,
Her death, her magic, her wealth of
You.
She thinks of me,
And all I represent,
With my beauty,
And all I resent.
But I’ve taken her cloak;
The one from the redbirds.
And fly away with it
To find and return things.
Her necklace.
My freedom.