Super Powers

by Brett Rutherford

     Adapted from Meleager, The Greek Anthology, xii, 63

The young men, smitten
at seeing themselves
mirrored in clear water,
are more than doubled
in beauty and power.

Their chests swell,
shoulders arch back,
biceps taut, fists
in a fighting posture.
Gods in themselves
they seem. Young

Heraclitus here
darts fire from his eyes.
So quick is he, that he
the thunderbolt of Zeus
could stop with a glance,
and, fire on fire, destroy it.

Diodorus, too,
attains heroic status.
Rising from marble bench
he says, “Not only
warmth my body grants
to inanimate stone,
but if I will it,
the stone will melt,
run off like a flow
at the forge of Hephaestus.

The two regard me,
notice me noticing
their lovely forms.
I burn. I melt.