Sonya Taaffe

Facilior

Vergil, stay back,
do not take my hand,
do not show me how easy the descent is,
how great the effort it would take me to return.
Do not show me the road under Cumae
I am trying not to see beckoning
like a shade I want to hold
no matter how many times it slips through my fingers,
trying until the dark clasps back at last.

Sonya Taaffe’s short stories and poems have appeared in such venues as Beyond Binary: Genderqueer and Sexually Fluid Speculative Fiction, The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry, People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction & Fantasy, The Best of Not One of Us, The Alchemy of Stars: Rhysling Award Winners Showcase, and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.