A Greek Myth and a Long Illness

Phaeton longed to drive the day,
to steer Apollo’s sun-chariot through the sky.
I might have warned him not to go, but he
would have defied me. His fate quickened:
the horses reeled, the coach plunged, with searing
sun, to earth. To save the globe, Zeus pierced Phaeton
with a thunderbolt, and tucked him

in paradise, a constellation
to his name. In death, the charioteer seems wiser.
Behind clouds, he keeps vigil over me.
Phaeton knows youth has a mind to dare, to win,
but I, at twenty-four, forgot him—
for I was like him. I chased grades, and planned goals
like columns for a Corinth temple. I couldn’t
foresee the blood transfusions, the pillboxes,
the tangled years. At once, my body fell,
yet I lived on, ill, fixed in a bed,

my wheel-less carriage to nowhere.
Here, I taste dread: my legs won’t walk the hall,
while notes from friends feel brief, distracted.
Phaeton calls down: “There is no shame in our grief!”
I exhale, then, and with slow cold hands,
near a green teacup, I begin to stitch
a chariot of my own making.

Veronica Ashenhurst has published both poetry and articles on legal education.  Her poems appear in Health Affairs, MORIA Literary Magazine, Star 82 Review, and Wordgathering, among other journals.  Her poetry has been nominated for the Best of the Net anthology.