Io

There you go again
Crossing the green briny Mediterranean
Into the swift brown river Nile
To escape him
Your toga swelling about your waist
Twisting around you like thick white rope

Gadflies stick in your hair and bite
Your scalp, the insides of your ears, and
Your pink peeling forehead, and
You can scratch or drown

His wife sets a hundred eyes to follow you
He gives you the dull tongue of a cow
They do everything short of blaming you outright

They offer the name of a sea to you, but
Somehow the Ionian Sea is no comfort to me
As I'm pinned to the cool ground of your
Clean temple by a man who thinks himself
To be Jupiter or Zeus.