Marcella Remund – Maiden Voyage

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Live Encounters Poetry & Writing September 2024

Maiden Voyage, poems by Marcella Remund.

Maiden Voyage

Had I been there on that April night, third class,
of course, and traveling as I must with father
or fiancé, I like to think I would have wandered

off alone, tucked myself at last into a leather chair
in the library, reading The Goddess of Reason.
After four days, my stomach would have settled,

and I would have found comfort in the rocking
and solitude below, those upstairs women in
gowns and furs, tipping champagne, or swishing

up and back on their first-class promenade. I like
to think that far from the upper decks it would still
have been peaceful, that the bump and scrape

of that iceberg would have seemed just rough water
and engine noise to my young mind. And once I knew,
would I have scrambled in a panic for a lifeboat,

or would my lifeboat have been the quiet below,
the leather chair, the book, a cup of tea, and
the sudden cold water, that blanket of sea?

Olympus Ablaze

Few remember the younger sister of Zeus,
Photia. She was mother Rhea’s favorite,
of course, the way she could light up the
mountain. Dad Chronos wasn’t a fan—all

that ashes to ashes business could undo
even his perfect timing. Like her siblings,
she had a temper. Each time the boys
tied her to a stovepipe, each time they

put a mop in her hands or tried to crawl
in bed with her as horny teen gods
were always doing, she’d torch the place.
You don’t see her name in history books

because like so many rebellious women,
she’s locked in Hades’ underworld, out
of sight in a dank, fireproof room where
the only thing she has to burn is herself.

Cigarette