Sometimes I dream of salty air and the kiss of fire.

The skies are gray, angry,
and water laps at my skirts
and my legs are numb.
There is iron, I think and jagged rocks,
and before I wake he is there,
white horse and sword
and then there is nothing
and the dream is over.

I dream sometimes that the sword is mine.

I dream sometimes that I never married,
that my children were born in blood and squalor
that I never knew the stars.

It is easier, in those dreams.
A hard life, a good life, and then nothing,
and the end of the dream is the dream itself.

There was never a snake to eat me,
Never a snake to slay,
never a man on horseback
a sword
a flash of metal and rock and foam.

Then I wake.

The gods pluck people from the earth
raise you to the stars like a favor.
You are dear to them,
and so they pull you from yourself
and call it destiny
and ever after you look down on normal lives
and watch for the men on horseback
who never come
and girls who know better than to dream
who never get saved.

Sometimes I dream of iron and hissing and fire
but I know it is only a dream
because the heavens are cold
and Hephaestus forges
deep below the mountains
where smoke will never reach me.