i.
athena dresses in cool, slick suits for office hours,
and then after she clocks out,
she beats her knuckles in on other people’s jawbones.

the fight clubs are her temples.

ii.
apollo shoots deer down with guns with his sister,
then plays in the local late-night rock band,
so that he can shoot up heroin after the show.

nobody ever specified what music meant to him.

iii.
artemis takes anti-depressants to live,
after actaeon raped her,
and if she didn’t then she’d never be able to hunt with her brother.

sometimes strong people don’t fight back.

iv.
zeus is a corporate ceo of human services,
making storms in other people’s lives,
and he’s fucking his assistant, ganymede, in the bathroom stalls.

the storm-master needs a little lightning of his own.

v.
hera marries zeus,
sipping cool red wine out of a long-stemmed glass,
that she throws on him when she finds out.

she stays because as a marriage counselor, you have to take your own advice.

vi.
aphrodite is a senior in high school,
the school slut,
with a thing for ares, who‘s four years older.

chain-smoking tastes like 50’s perfume if you try hard enough.

vii.
poseidon goes to trial for the rape of medusa,
committed in the back room of athena’s fight club,
demeter testifies against him, too.

the father of two burned out his secrets.

viii.
ares fights at athena’s ring,
beats up the douche who hits his girlfriend on the street,
a raging feminist ally who bluffs his way through immorality.

his motorcycle is the loudest noise in the city that never sleeps.

ix.
hades is a nice guy,
his fingers flash with jeweled rings when he waves them,
dealing drugs out of his pocket.

sweet girls with bloody teeth are his favorite dessert.

x.
persephone crunches diamonds between her teeth,
she sucks the rings off of hades’s finger,
and decorates his house with floral arrangements and nonconformity.

there’s only one queen of the underworld.

xi.
demeter rubs lotion over her dark skin at the flower shop,
she does her best to teach her daughter,
that laying down flat is for doormats.

queens raise queens.

xii.
dionysus spends his nights drinking jack and smoking weed,
long since dead to the concept of balance,
balance is for the weak.

who doesn’t want to live in extremes?

xiii.
hermes is a sweet-talker with great legs,
his affections fleeting and wild,
as he swings around the pole at the all-opportunities club.

his life is flashing lights and nights in jail for petty theft.

xiv.
hephaestus is dedicated to work as well as his wife,
let’s be honest,
algaea is as much work as the metal craft he does in their garage.

rough hands build things that endure.

xv.
hestia is a young girl,
a freshman in high school,
but her eyes are burning with fire as she protects what is hers.

she was taught young to strike first and you will always be safe.
in this world that kills beauty,
even gods cannot survive the fall.

modern gods were not made for this place.