Medusa Crashes the Party
Donna Pucciani
I know why
you won’t look me in the eye.
It’s not the glare from the golden scales
that substitute for a woman’s skin,
nor my hair of hissing serpents.
I do not own a comb nor flowing
robes of silk, for my body
owns itself, in case you hadn’t noticed.
Kings and revelers, I arrive at your feast
to turn you into stone. You richly deserve it.
You have impoverished the many
and favored the few.
Children shiver in cages while
their mothers weep, and many a father
has died with a knee on their neck.
My eyes tell the truth,
which is what you fear most.
So drink your wine, partiers,
and eat your meat and fruit,
smell the rot which hangs in the air
like the plague you deny. Sing
your bawdy songs of pleasure
while peasants die in your fields,
poisoned by your villainous smoke. I will
blow it back in your cretinous faces,
while your limbs petrify, heavy
with their own evil.
Don’t look away. It’s too late for that.
One of you will die each time a serpent
uncoils as one of my beauteous tresses,
each moment that our eyes meet
across the distance of your luxurious lawns,
your rose garden of decaying blooms.
Donna Pucciani
I know why
you won’t look me in the eye.
It’s not the glare from the golden scales
that substitute for a woman’s skin,
nor my hair of hissing serpents.
I do not own a comb nor flowing
robes of silk, for my body
owns itself, in case you hadn’t noticed.
Kings and revelers, I arrive at your feast
to turn you into stone. You richly deserve it.
You have impoverished the many
and favored the few.
Children shiver in cages while
their mothers weep, and many a father
has died with a knee on their neck.
My eyes tell the truth,
which is what you fear most.
So drink your wine, partiers,
and eat your meat and fruit,
smell the rot which hangs in the air
like the plague you deny. Sing
your bawdy songs of pleasure
while peasants die in your fields,
poisoned by your villainous smoke. I will
blow it back in your cretinous faces,
while your limbs petrify, heavy
with their own evil.
Don’t look away. It’s too late for that.
One of you will die each time a serpent
uncoils as one of my beauteous tresses,
each moment that our eyes meet
across the distance of your luxurious lawns,
your rose garden of decaying blooms.