For Maria Spelleri
In a dispassionate play Bertolt Brecht would have written
if only there had been more time, the goddess Athena,
the owl-eyed diva of wisdom, no great beauty, still
a material girl at heart, has taken up prostitution
because sex work, though unglamorous, yields ready
cash—she has done the math—and a girl does what
she has to do while fashion houses keep churning out sweatshop
leather bags that one must have to prevent the fall
of another civilization, and so, inspired by designer logos,
she has mapped out her strategy, donned her emotional
armor, taken up her snake-wrapped spear, and gone
calmly, deliberately, courageously into war to maintain
her fashionable image and save the economy from ruin.
Copyright 2016
T. Allen Culpepper
