It is said that the oracle at Delphi 
prophesied in an utter fever. Intoxicated 
on fumes from a split in the rock, 
she inhaled and babbled
in pearl-eyed hysteria like the future
had warped her mind. 
But history is littered with rumor. 
She could have spoken in her own voice, 
quiet and steady. I imagine 
the silence that followed her proclamations
sounded like our neighborhood
past midnight where any one of us
turns desperate before the glow
of our phones, drunk on loneliness
asking questions like Am I pregnant?
How much blood is too much blood? 
Why can’t I feel the baby? 
What if my baby hates me? 
What if I hate myself? 
A flat oracle, the blue light, 
the old hope that something is there
to answer us. A friend took
the abortion pill and in the rare caul 
of her broken heart Googled Did it work? Did it work? 
There’s a horror and a hope
that maybe it didn’t, 
the Eleusinian mysteries of our own bodies
and how a heartbeat survives 
or doesn’t. The absolute silence, 
our questions echoing back to us on WebMD,
a new elder with more answers and no love. 
The oracle at Delphi was called Pythia, 
a translation of to rot, the rank sweetness 
of decay or the film of wine
in the empty glass at the bedside. 
Nights like this happen for everyone, don’t they?
Before the baby, after the baby, 
the algorithms hum their mysterious songs. 
In its clean vapors, I am the baby now,
half asleep in shrouded frenzy,
lost as the old gods.