(Photo by Les Argonatutes)
Medusa Wrapped in Swaddling Clothes and Lying on the Cave Floor
I am not human anymore, the girl among the pines whispered to herself as strands of her hair writhe and curl around her shoulders with a mind of their own. Staring too long is what makes me inhuman, she thought. But the thought felt wrong, not… off,but incomplete. No, I am already inhuman and this is why I stare too long, and the sky boils and my friend turns to stone and no one must see me, no one must see me, no one can see my face. The gorgon among the pines nodded to herself. Inside she was screaming, rejecting what she had just learned from the pile of girl-shaped rubble in front of her on the ground. She could just make out the detail of an Oshkosh overall snap, a shoelace, a book with horses on the cover that must have been in her friend's hands a moment before. She nudged a broken piece of stone with her toe. The broken piece was a tennis shoe like her own, a whole foot really, in a white tennis shoe, scrunched socks like her own but harder and with her touch they shattered. The girl reached for her friend's hand, it was stiff and cold marble. She pulled the hand of her friend, broke it from the wrist along a crumbling gray split in the stone.
She tucked the hand in her shorts pocket, turned away from the rubble and the dust coating the palms of her hands like flour, and let herself back into the mobile home. The sun continued to set behind the pine trees and the smell of exhaust clung in the air.
“Do not gaze on me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyards I have not kept.”
Say Her Name Three Times and Live
The next day is the same. The evening sun shoots through the pine trees and reflects off of the mobile home siding. If the girl stares long enough at the few clouds above, she can see the sky begin to boil.
~
The gorgon stepped out of her den, out of the circle of shale and marble and broken clay statues. She walked down to the village, hands reached for her and hardened in the same instance; screams echoed and cut off
There were none who could touch her, none who could impose on her the intimacy they felt compelled to force—
~
Why would you leave me.
Did I look too hard out of the corner of my eye? Did you feel your fingertip harden under my gaze? Did your mother notice my eyes changing yours, your sclera turning red and rusty, the texture of warm Florida clay?
And why can’t I hold you?
~
The girl among the pine trees nods to herself. Her mother was a gorgon, also, she decides. But one hidden and human-looking enough. How often did her mother’s eyes slide over another and full brown lips stretch in a smile, her voice remaining soft and dovelike in the face of (d)anger, all to keep friends from turning to stone? The mirrors her mother slid behind her own eyes to save her girl friends from her gaze. Did my father know, the girl wondered? He must know, she thought. How can you love a gorgon, live, but not know?
It Is Not Unfair To Say That I Have Become Obsessed With Medusa
I dream of Medusa often in waking and sleeping.
I dream of finding her head washed up on Jaycee Beach;
Locks and loops draped limply over the sand and
Tangled in dark seaweed.
I dream of finding her washed up on JC Beach;
I see the nest of snakes and seaweed and am drawn to it, not repulsed.
I undo my headscarf and drape it over her eyes.
Her mouth is open in a scream that bulges her veins.
And that's when the last snake with a bit of life left in it
Bites me. Hard.
And doesn't let go.
I receive the only life left for a Gorgon to give:
a beauty of the temple, I had been
violated, having
seen me once chaste
devoted to Athena’s service
beautiful, and
hid in the temple
devoted to chastity
beautiful and hid
from the jealous
aspiration of many suitors
by my devotion to her
beautiful and violated
having once been chaste
and devoted to her
numbing the seas,
violated having
hid her chaste eyes behind
her strong hand
strong, and
numbing her
numbing the seas,
violated having
seen her chaste eyes behind
hands that shielded her
beautiful, and hid her
enemies, numbing her
enemies,
shielding the Gorgon
of all of her in the jealous
aspiration
of many suitors
the goddess
wears the shield of her
many suitors, of
all her enemies,
numbing the Gorgon
and the Gorgon’s hair
into petrification
I'm whirling in her clarity; dream hair darker than a toadstool and I want her
I want her and to pull off her scarf, out of view of sympathetic nursings
and to soothe her who'd drawn abend from the seaweed, pull my face to hers,
totally will her to be known by me; over-caressed and lavish with life,
scarf of snake wound kinkily around her neck
a counterband of black on black
a serpent awake and limping into
dreams limping, washed up and knowing
the badness season is done piercing its cadaver.