A Conversation Between Rain and Lightning or Alternatively—Zeus Talk to Himself

By Chestina Craig

& in the beginning I was ready / & in the beginning I needed the whole sky to myself / the rain was home and I didn’t know the ways lightening cuts clouds / why am I always sending the water away / cast off this pain into Poseidon / I never wanted my weakened eyes to grow food / I can’t grasp the jagged edge of my own bolt anymore / what of the war / of electricity and water / why was I made to hold both / what does it mean to be a contradiction / feed a tree and split its spine in the springtime / a fragile father / the youngest son / who in a childhood memory let a typhoon rip my tendons out / maybe that’s why I grow into wayward weather / the angel and devil on the shoulders of a storm / a greedy god of too many things / the world was warned of me before I existed / I am the phenomena / lost leader in phantom rain and fire starter / why put me on the mountain when I am so human