He cleaved unto his “Hera,” she her “Zeus.”
No mortal couple ever loved as well.
The real Zeus took offense and rained abuse.
Shore birds now, they scrounge from shell to shell.
—from "On the Mercy of the Gods" by Kate Bernadette Benedict in The Flea #13
Lovely little sonnet, and a neat enigma. The voice is claimed for Ixion, but the poem is a para-universe where Ixion's Tartarus, his hell, is turned rough seaside with bleakness set "from shell to shell." And yet later we do catch a glimpse of him on that orthodox burning wheel, from where Ixion relates, in Benedict's gorgeous phrasing,
I look down on that godforbearing bluff
and watch the pale eggs hatch.
I can't help being reminded, though, given the "Zeus"/"abuse" line that I'm a bit of an alien these days with my own pronunciation using the proper Greek diphthong (i.e. Zay-oos, but much shorter). Now I'll just have to write a bagatelle exploring my own style of rhymes.