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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.

 

 

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