After Denial Poem by Gabrielle Ciarann Roniyah Baer

Ah gods! How could you do this!
He wasn't your target of choice!
His heart was not to be your sacrifice!
Not here, Not now,
Not in a foreign land
[where they didn't even know he'd need a coin for Charon]

Not for somebody else's cause,
[who don't even know a warrior is honorably burned on a pyre! ]
And not for *her*! Why for her?
That Sumerian-princess-sea-captain!
She didn't want to go home again, she said
home was nothing but trouble, she said
well I can't argue that
but she didn't mind taking our dinars
to dropp us off in this gods-forsaken land

Why, Iolaus? blast it!
Why should you give your life for *her*?
A warrior's death you wanted,
I know, but this isn't how we planned
back to back, we said,
brought down together, we said,
or not at all, we said!
You broke your word!
You broke our deal!

You broke my heart.

(written Sept.1999)