Aesculapius in the Underworld

by Ryan G. Van Cleave

Tonight, on the deck of Charon’s death–barge,

Aesculapius sees a woman he once danced

with under the moon in the bluish sea–surge

of the Mediterranean — the is a story the

loremasters swear is true — he puts his hands

to hers, cold as a long–buried fossil, and the

whorls of their fingertips merge as her body

tells him, in Braille, via osmosis, how to unknit

the hurts that took her breath, her sense of touch.

The sinew of flesh, the dark resonance of bone

sings to him, a wind of answers sluicing through

ruined apple trees, jack pines, every secret to

the mending of mortality and beyond: death isn’t

a barrier, the stop–and–shift–into–reverse cry that

it is for others. Her wrist will burn for a month

but she shudders then awakens, her golden eyelids

moving fast as the bark of Cerberus at the bone–and–mortar

gate jar her truly awake, aware of one more chance,

the opportunity to throw the past like a half–empty sack

into the back of a wagon going the opposite direction;

smaller and moving out of sight, her old life, her old ways.

She plants a kiss soft on Aesculapius’ parchment–thin cheek,

then swims for the far shore, where the long reeds

wave darkly in the breeze, goodbye, goodbye