Atalanta

Last night a faceless goddess

Visited me in a dream

Another appeared beside her

Beautiful and awful

The blank face

Issued a warning

“Never stop for a golden apple.”

The other one laughed

I started running

But I felt strings on my back

Keeping me in place

The luminous one

Moved me like a marionette

When the apples appeared

My body picked them up

Until my arms were full

Of rotting fruit