Katherine Riegel-III
Hydra
What’s neat is I can see me with all my heads!
—Charlotte Alessio Manier, 4 years old, on looking at her reflection in the back of a silver
pinwheel
1. This head sits by the window, watching others in the frenetic clasp of fun, envious, sun-
starved, growing.
2. Gold adorns this head like a blossom.
3. This head sings songs of torment from the bottom of the sea.
4. This head has a tongue of stone.
5. To tie a headstrong girle from love, is to tie the Furies again in fetters.*
6. After cutting off Medusa’s head, Perseus lifted it by its snaky hair.
7. This head imagines a late summer day, drifting dragonflies, the shade of a gnarled tree,
the taste of apples.
8. This head makes a shadow on the sidewalk. It opens its mouth, and the concrete speaks.
9. This is the head of a girl aflame in a world waiting for combustion.