Medusa is Crying
by Ilya Tourtidis
Sobbing bitterly like a ravished maiden,
Medusa wonders why vipers were matted to her hair,
hissing, and spitting, and arguing with each other
like deformed children. Perhaps it was her fault,
she thinks. If only she had not kindled the ire of the living
gods who were so very fond of punishing their creation.
If only she understood then as she does now, how much
deceit there is in love, and how willingly it can be tricked
in and out of its harness. Her greatest fear is not death,
but the shame that she would live so favoured as a sliver
of her former self, forever…She will never be appeased,
she thinks. Never again live undisguised, she tells herself
as a ganglion of eyes suddenly fix their gaze
and prepare to strike.
Something underserved happened.
Something big and cream fed was wrested from her body.
But she has no time to thread through the tangle of her thoughts
because another cutter suddenly appears out of a clot of light
and steps towards her.
At first, the young girl Medusa sees staring back at her
is hazy and unclear, but too familiar to be ignored.
Then as the memory of her former self thaws and bleeds
like a dark red seed, it dawns on her that she is no longer a fragment
but a mere reflection, and hesitates for just a moment.
Just until the gorgon in her stirs
and hunches over the water blossom on her lips.
And then, in the certain knowledge that all is lost,
that she can not possibly endure
the very bottom of things,
she growls defiantly
as one already slain
and turns to stone.
Ilya Tourtidis was born in Greece. He moved to Australia when he was four years old and to Canada when he was fifteen. He worked as teacher and counsellor in the Comox Valley where he now resides. He was cowinner of the Gerald Lampert Award in 1994. His poetry publications include Mad Magellan’s Tale, The Spell of Memory, Path of Descent and Devotion, and Bright Bardo. He has also published several e-books.