Amy Blythe, "Gorgon"

You led me to my reaping,

speaking of my sublimation

as a kindness, a submission,

to be taken in tribute

in temple, in-brined

and indebted,

in you, a man of blue.

 

How you watched, fervid

and surface tense,

while I was punished,

by virgin reason 

for your imitable crimes,

by those who held the sanctity of stone 

more vital than that of body.

 

How I struggled

as parts of you mineralized,

in part, in parts that should have been mine.

 

How I fought.

 

How I tried and tried and-

 

How I railed,

to shield against the salt,

the water that filled me.

 

How I grew harder from it,

turned more a crag than ever

while you wilted. 

 

How there was no more stone-walling,

no more snake in the grass rigor

left to fight against.

 

How my blood

called to vipers,

and my neck cut

to release wings, rose skin

tinged green and grimly set,

to make a stillness 

out of a man.