These Telchines are called by some writers charmers and enchanters, who besprinkle animals and plants, with a view to destroy them, with the water of the Styx, mingled with sulphur. Others on the contrary say, that they were persons who excelled in certain mechanical arts . . .

—The Geography of Strabo

 

Tartarus’s footless offspring who spray fans of glyphosate
    mixed with Styx water over farmland regularly,
technicians of os agrotóxicos for cash, I am weaponless
    against you, plus preoccupied by a to-do list longer than

an epic—what you’ve done to my popcorn, my popcorn
    does to me, bowl after bowl of it as I take the documentary
about you in in fits between dark washes and a trip
    to the True Value for drywall mud to repair the divot
          the doorknob to the bathroom door put in the drywall.

Be that as it may, I will think ill of you
    with every other step
          and curse the way you worm
even into the baguette, which in Paris you can buy
    from vendors on the Pont Neuf
ridiculous with butter and the ham on it
    sliced thin but piled up thick—
          I’m halfway there, I hesitate, I click