Medusa

Everyone harvests a snake skin.

yours protects from serpents with smiles

who seek to bite the soft flesh below the chin,

and slip into the Nile of passion. Swarms of

locusts dried the passion, but awake in the serpent slide

Other snakes, dormant, come and go

forced into corners as they hide from your glow

and lash out, blinded by desire. Or need. But some are sneakier,

and pour pestilence to bleed, watching you giggle but thirsting to feed

Warned by others, “that one is poisonous, don’t go near”

but you are dragged into the tumult of fate,

by a lonely impulse of delight.

Shackled to your chest, arm locked around her snakeskin dress,

You reap control, commanding the attention to your hidden flesh

But the skin has shed, the serpent closes in,

And locks its glistening sheen tight to suppress

Only a breath, a slither, and you are one of the same

You’re blind, you acquiesce

You slump into its nest and slither into its chest

You lay your fearful head on her scales,

a Remora to her Nile of passion.

The serpent gasps in delight,

But only tempts the killer blow,

and slips away from your empty carcass

a snake skin shed in fits of throe

She regains her cold-blooded composure,

her serpent coat now a cocoon for weeping passion.

Left you, desirous and needful, without fight

Spluttering amongst others in the enclosure,

Peppered with seething bites