MEDUSA

ALICIA ELKORT

Medusa shakes her rage her snake-

eyes & hair I’d love to touch my

curls hers touching this gaze my eyes

of disruption she was raped you say

tell it to the mountain I say tell it

to the sky tell it to every man the sins

of every man come to vanquish her

name & step on her head they can’t look

in her eyes that gaze they turn to stone

how we turn to stone every time a person

asks what was she wearing was that vodka

she was drinking who does she think she is

to turn so much beauty & not owned by a man?

Channa’s sisters call her a liar they called my

beautiful friend a wicked liar to ruin the family

name but her father raped her & sisters

abandoned her on an island named Grief

with this gift to look into a stranger’s eyes

& know their own rage will turn them to

stone no warning –how she’d love to have tea

add honey & friends & lemon a few cookies but

these truthful eyes what does it look like

Medusa who has seen the truth & lived with grit

while the world re-tells her story the salient

parts all wrong it’s not your story at all what

has she seen what evil turned her heart turned

the blood on our lips the crush of our breath

we turn & turn to stone like Lot’s wife

who wasn’t even given her own name how

dare she turn for her daughters [& who is killing

or raping them] what vengeful god is this

not my god to punish a person for another’s

actions what was she wearing again?

Sandra Bland shouldn’t have been so

angry & disrespectful to the man standing

on her head demanding fealty commanding

what she’s lost in this world is lost to us

Medusa was raped sounds like the result

of her own actions i.e. Medusa was walking

down the street & stopped for a coffee

how about Poseidon raped Medusa

in her mother’s home her own sacred

temple did you catch that?

Poseidon raped beauty beauty belongs

to the voyeur her mother casts her out

(how like Channa) men came to kill

to claim her rage for who likes a nasty

woman who would vote for a nasty

woman who cares what happens to a …

you can grab ‘em by the pussy all day long

how I long for Medusa’s snakes her skin

her arms & if I looked into her eyes I’d see

rain & roses faun & lemur sweet river

mists & skies azuring the night if I could

tell her one thing it’d be I am grateful

for my truth her stare my snakes her eyes

my hair her gloriously healing rage.

ALICIA ELKORT's poetry has been published in AGNI, Arsenic Lobster, Black Lawrence Press, Georgia Review, Heron Tree, The Hunger Journal, Jet Fuel Review, Menacing Hedge, Rogue Agent, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, as well as many others. Her poems have been nominated for the Orisons Anthology (2016), the Pushcart (2017), and A Best of the Net (2018). Alicia reads for Tinderbox Poetry Journal, mostly with a cup of strong black tea in hand.