The water can tailor this body no more.
As much as the mirror, the glade in the wood
Drinks it in. But the belly’s been gouged by a claw
And the weave of a hanky is spotted with blood.
Holding back her stray locks, an enveloping mesh,
Andromeda runs through the brush and the brakes
Like a creature that carries a dart in its flesh
Dictating the cross-country path that it takes.
Her face is all filthy with spittle and sweat
But joy has invaded her senses and spirit.
Nevermore dropping down through the night will she get
Ghosts filling her bed on a nuptial visit.
Adieu, Sabina, Rosamund, Hippolytê: adieu.
The twilight moves you on, has other places planned for you.
Andromeda yields to her innermost rage
In which her exhaustion and thirst are annealed;
There’s a welcome, this time, from the wide open space,
No mistake, no return, for the prodigal child.
She goes, and she adds to the sun’s dying blaze,
And the funeral ocean it props in the west,
The blood of her wound where her own shadow sways,
Prey offered to giants and dwarves to be kissed.
Andromeda travels. The place she has gone from,
The place where her fate that is cancelled was given,
Is marked by the jet of a snowy-white column.
The monster has fled.
It’s too much for high heaven.