The Medusa of God
I will make mine arrows drunk with blood,
and my sword shall devour flesh…
Deuteronomy 32:42
Sodom—
where are your kin,
your comforts,
your secret pleasures?
From afar we came
to behold your marble and glory—
your tinkling bracelets, your veils,
your timbrels and dances,
your crisping pings and silks.
Instead we found
screamless gaps,
tongueless hollows,
stone-blind sockets.
Lot’s wives.
Medusa’s eels—
tentacles of silence,
her lust—
the one all seek,
her gaze—
the end of all longing,
wove your people
into stone.
Like ants from the deep,
the men of Gomorrah also rose—
armed with mirrors and swords,
with myths in their mouths—
drawn to the spider.
Come closer,
she whispered.
You have imagined
the die is not cast.
They all do…
They always do…
Most beautiful, once—
a priestess to the Most High God.
Now all coil and snake,
unblinking eyes,
a searing white fire to the flesh.
I was made holy
by becoming monstrous.
I did not choose this fate.
I did not ask to be His sword.
But I do swing.
Irresistibly they come,
they look,
they stall.
Cities crumble
by the touch of the asp,
the hiss of the cockatrice.
And still…
they chisel her name
into the salt left behind.
