THE GOLDEN BOUGH

 

He lost his soul

walking into the woods

but he realized the woods

 itself was his soul

and while losing his bearings 

in the dew-laden thicket of larches.

pines and elms

 he came across a golden bough:

 Aeneas-wise, tried to break it

and somehow to descend into the Averno

and bestows it upon Persephone hands 

in return of kissing her asphodel-scented nipples.

He couldn't tear the golden bough

apart from the bark 

and it dawned on him that bough

was not his fate nor even descending

into the Averno...Let alone

to kiss gloriously a goddess

in the inglorious darkness.