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I
Sing, Muse, of the desert Queen called Dido,
she who was sacrificed by the same gods
who bore her on the altar of Venus' son.
She whom history has swallowed whole
is not permitted to retell it.
So use her lips, settle inside the throat
of the wild-eyed shade, and sing
of the woman who was dealt
so much hardship and strife
only to end in flames.

II
I was born far from here, far from anywhere.
I have no mother.
I have no father.
I took my people in the palm of my hand
and we traveled across the sea,
to the city of the queen of the gods.
I buried my heart in the rich black earth of Libya
and from it grew Carthage.
The only child we would ever have,
a widow's consolation
and a queen's throne.
I was the river running through this place,
sweet and dark and dangerous.
I was mother and father.
I was everything we ever needed.

III
They came from across the wide ocean,
from a place whose ruins
had not yet stopped smoking.
I should have known
that destruction came with them, stowed away
on those fast ships.
They came to stare at their own faces
in the walls of our temple,
to hear their own sad story from
someone else's mouth.
And I would have given them that;
but the gods demanded greater tribute
for their melancholy child.
Love, treacherous son of a conniving mother,
crawled into my lap, all innocence.
And while I cooed into his ear,
he burrowed into my guts.
A tapeworm, hollowing me out inside.
The gods themselves in my veins,
a fever on my brow.
As if I could already feel the flames.
Who could withstand such forces?
No woman on earth, not even a queen.
And so the end of my story began.

IV
And after all that, you've followed me here.
A divine joke,
with the punchline echoing even past my death.
I have nothing to say to you,
to any of you.
Who was there to listen while I was alive?
Don't worry, you haven't seen the last of me.
Someday I'll walk out of these woods,
through a gate of horn
back to the city that I bore like a child.
I'm going to wrench this blade out of my belly,
and my blood will spill out
onto all of your hands.
My hair in flames,
teeth glinting white.
I'll tear all of this apart and rebuild it,
carve my own story on the temple walls.