POETRY.

ANDROMEDA

She was the first pin-up.

Naked and bejewelled,

she was chained to a rock,

then thrown by heavy-breathing

winds into wild postures:

at each new angle, lightning

popped like a photographer's flash.

The gold circling her neck

matched her hair, the emeralds

her eyes, the rubies her nipples,

and the amethysts those bruises

covering her skin, once pearl-

white as for all princesses.

In lulls of wind, she pulled

against iron, stood almost straight.

The sky was a mouth swallowing her,

the sun a glimmering eye;

lolling in the tide, a sea-dragon

slithered and gurgled like

some vast collective slob.

From afar, Perseus saw her first

as a creature writhing on a rock;

close up, she was a whirlpool

or rage and terror and shame.

The dragon he changed to stone

with hardly a thought. But

his strength almost failed him

in unlocking those chains.

Looking away from her nakedness,

he smooths her ankles, wrists.

She waits for the moment

when he will meet her eyes.

By Diane Fahey