When we grow into ourselves as a microcosm,
a terrarium draped by sheets,
I am your peasant people.
You give me the word kind,
Little creature.
I do not give you the accusation: tyrant.
Perhaps naively, for regardless,
I had already kissed crowns across your brow, had
sworn, mute, my oath of fealty.
Most mornings
You leave before daybreak
A reminder of your stature, my rank is
in wheat fields
beneath Demeter's unrelenting sun.
Stalks taunt the golden
lockets of your hair enough to
Allow my heart to blister,
my shoulders to quiver from the strain.
But a king's got to eat
Even if he doesn't know where the bread comes from.
Do you still
not understand love?