Day 12 NaPoWriMo - The Story of Antiope

The Story of Antiope

Zeus arrived on earth in the form of an android,
titanium & recycled plastic, face molded
in the shape of a man. How cold his hands,
his touch like ice. She felt inside of her ice.
& she exiled herself from her kingdom
as her belly grew with his strange twins.
She grew & grew, wandering the countryside
consuming bitumen & berries, hunger
never satiated. She chewed on the asphalt of roads
& the unskinned meat of the deer.
She ate the world, natural & manmade.
She stripped plastic chords of wires,
ate them like strings of licorice or noodles.
She collected grocery bags caught
in the branches of trees. She fished in the rivers
for salmon, fishing line, & bottle caps.
She could feel her twins, metal & plastic,
resinous & moving, sharp elbows &
titanium toes. Made of the materials of Zeus
& the within the body of her time.
They tapped inside as if she were a ripe watermelon.
& so, Antiope found an abandoned car lot,
& labored into the early morning pushing out
the amalgamates of her children, their newborn
bodies like so many small parts of a machine.
She took a wrench to them & put them together,
Her hands making form & shape, mold & tool.
& when the last screw & nut was placed,
they screamed aluminum, tinny & sharp.
From one of her breasts leaked amber gasoline,
& from the other, tar oozed. Her children
ravenous, latched & drank her. Oil on their lips,
she looked down at them, her manmade creations,
gods & monsters, product of her hunger.