Undernourished youth, wings
on hat and sandals, who cannot
stop to eat a proper meal, talking
as he runs. He’s Mercury, minister
of messages. The astrologer
promises much from him, now
in the soulful sign of Pisces:
mystery and metaphor, if only
we are able to decode them.

Our old decoder rings, dry
plastic, left too long in
sticking drawers, have cracked;
our grade school answers
aren’t much use these days.
The messenger god has been
demoted to delivering flowers,
which carry their own
hard-to-decipher messages.