Perseus’ Flight

Gustave Moreau – Perseus and Andromeda. 1870.

Perseus’ Flight

Medusa’s murdered head drips blood into the sea.
Curls twitch. Her filthy mane, dead but possessed by hate,
disgorges poison through my grip. Even the white
waves thundering below, Neptune’s loose cavalry,

no longer gallop beneath winged shoes. They’re petrified
by curdled Gorgon’s blood, gold calderas where
volcanoes rise out of the sea. Their liquid fire
cascades above the scab-like rocks. Here blood has dried,

becoming land; steam rises from the ground,
spitting like snakes. I’m drained by this unnatural flight,
adrenaline still quivers in my legs. Red light
collides with clouds and grass, the sky is crowned

with an embarrassed glow. I find beauty. Further West,
bright particles of fire imbue the soil with strange
properties. Golden fruit hangs in the giant’s grange.
Clouds stretch like gauze across a lover’s crimson chest.