Burdens

If they would rather slit 
their husband's throats in bed 
than remain in forced, incestuous 
marriages, I imagine the forty-
nine daughters of Danaus must not 
have minded as much their punishment
in the afterlife: endlessly drawing 
water from the river to fill a vessel 
without a bottom. I'd prefer it 
to running a race then getting 
handed off as prize to a man 
I've never seen before. What about 
other characters cursed with impossible 
tasks? The girl commanded to separate 
and count each seed before sundown, 
the child who must sweep up all 
the sand in the desert. Then there's 
Sisyphus, who gets to push a boulder 
up a slope only for it to roll back down 
again. How many times did he say You've got
to be kidding or This is nuts? But he carried 
on, didn't he? What started out as grief or
punishment must have become commitment, 
patience. Maybe even pride. A way to shift
the burden of carrying from Impossible
to No matter what, I know what I can do.