Two Poems - Taylor Devlin

Gorgons

I have lived amongst creatures, delicate

yet hard as teeth. Honey and milk seeping

from mouths, sticking to our skin. Medusa,

fair maiden of Greece, we are all your three

sisters. How with a single glance each man

crumbled. Give us the stare Gods slit your neck

for, blood sweet with venom. Marble and stone,

grasping gold amidst glistening water,

snakes hissing at our necks. We make our nails

daggers, slash those envious of our being,

carve a trench into fleshy thigh, or for

an itch rip nylon stockings up to shreds

the men now in these trenches, Perseus,

Polydectes, begging us stop biting.

How Would You Know?

How would you know that my own

head is a burning building

Unless you were inside the dream

where I'm on a boat with a man

I don't know and he is dying,

the sea nothing but salt and ice.

When I became a woman,

my emotions were met with impatience—

A real waste of time, these insides,

a continual up-down, up-down,

How could you understand, when you ask

if I am crying for a reason and I say no

But what I mean is there are a million

reasons.

How would you see my own

head stuffed with pillows of smoke

unless you knew I said no

to give myself enough space to crawl out

unless you saw the growing tree

in my backyard felled by lightning

the soft peaches becoming bruised

and then small ghosts