THE MERVYN THOMPSON INCIDENT

“Why do you skin me back from myself?”

cries anguished Marsyas, trussed to a tree

in the grove of Academe

while Maenads flay his hide, only this time

the satyr wears a placard declaring him a rapist.

               Ovid’s mistake

was to ascribe the duel to Apollo, when

it was his sister Diana,

chaste and stern,

and the duel wasn’t wind versus strings

but versatile social range against

absolute moral pitch in a chaotic age

(besides the laurels are always

awarded the Olympian).

                                              Even a goddess

reclining in the shade of his agony

tires of vengeance, and yearning

for moonlit hunts, she would not remove

her pale mask, would not

give an answer,

would not stay, and

departing the scene at the occidental spring

wondered

if some good would come of the lesson,

some brave new world

be born out of the scream.