Destiny
was young,
dreaming of
a one-way ticket
out of that one-street town
when Momus rolled past
on his Brain Eraser motorcycle
having left the first wife,
three children,
and Patty Feathers
a stripper with nine cats
who’d kept him in designer clothes.
Later that night
head in the clouds, fantasizing about
her eighteenth birthday, leather
boots, and boys, Destiny pushed
through the beaded curtain, into the backroom
of Zeus’s Everything Shop,
meeting Momus for the first time,
a towel wrapped around his waist
his moist skin scrubbed and sweet smelling.
His jive as smooth as the bike he rolled in on.
The choking fat joint he offered her, rejected.
Momus plowed every juicy female
that crossed his path; he tried to win
Destiny that way too, but she
snubbed the ride, provoking the quest.
Soon they met at local bar Grub Street,
drank shots chased with ALPHA, a rare lager.
Shot for shot
they drank, until a bleary-eyed Momus
begged her to drive him home.
He’d captivated her
by walking a lobster on a leash,
hustling drunks for money as he
fed them the cherrystones,
the lobster cracked with its claw.
And stunned her when he reached
under her shirt, exposing her
to the bartender, like she
was the prize at an outlaw-biker rally.
Momus, the bad boy,
had promised her the world
filled her with excitement.
Hunger she’d craved like an addict.
Soon Destiny agreed to tie the knot,
and cunning Momus became her god.
His passion was both hypnotic and biting.
His commands bled from her ears,
his mark he branded deep,
lest she’d forget her place.
Her fate beyond dark
when Momus repeatedly pinned
vicious notes
to a graphic sex manual
with a switchblade,
her shortcomings highlighted in red.
Momus the magnificent had fooled them all.
Stubborn Destiny, the neighbors,
his few friends, and his progeny
suspended inside their separate prisons,
their mutual stares submissive.
He’d plotted how he would consume each one.
The exact time he would pluck out the hearts,
gouge the eyes, eat them whole, then pry
their parts cleanly from his teeth, mint
pick expertly tossed, the celebration, grim.
To survive, Destiny, became a beast too.
She understood none of his friends
would appreciate his class of art.
The words he spewed and punched
into her face, her palette of black eyes.
The way he offended her allies.
Beaten down, she waited.
Ridiculed, she served.
Terrified, she paused.
Hopeless, she remained.
Until Zeus looked down
from Mount Olympus,
saw what Momus had wrought.
Zeus, seeing her doom
liberating her, so that
a strong Destiny
could finally flee,
and rescue her journey.
Momus, however, remained the same.
He continued to lament, boast and blame.
He declared he’d grown humble
after Destiny left; his new
conquest, a weak substitute.
He professed to all who could hear
that he still loved his Destiny
but years had passed
and his Destiny,
forever gone,
was no longer his to claim.
Though she’d soldiered through the worst,
Momus grudgingly had to accept
his time with her
had come to an end.
Soon, Momus, the miserable mocked the gods again.
Dragged his new soul mate by the neck
through her cars open window, vowing to
drive her to Hell for toiling outside his realm.
Heroic, she summoned the men in blue
to file her grievance.
But the fugitive fire in Momus raged on,
compelling The Fates to impose their leaden doom,
fusing his gifts, and his skull, to a final calling.
© Cornelia Connie DeDona 3-21-18
Corney Press 