cantos for medusa

I.
medusa, my darling
when we met
as children
i begged you to fandango
across pools of ether with me

to drag your ivy across my limbs

to move through the quiet dark of evening together

in the stead of such romance
you spit magma
from graveyard teeth

and i stood ashamed before you

II.
dear darling medusa
you revealed a chink in your armor
by laughing
one day
in the park

i removed my drugstore vampire teeth
and told you a joke
about a baseball player
nicknamed "sweet chariot"
who always swung too high at the pitch

things were good then
as teenagers

III.
oh, sweetheart medusa
habitually late for dinner parties
frozen before the mirror
you're too hard on yourself, dearest

disregard the optometrist's fictions

even dracula must see a dentist


IV.
precious medusa,
what god crocheted you together, woman
for what god crocheted you together

those bones that explore internal
negotiating the soft bags and loose corners of your skin

those bones to which muscle clings
like some hirsute, parasitic creature
fallen from the knuckles and thick of a tree

a tree
near a tiny pool of ether
where we fandango
somnambulating