Andromeda

i saw Andromeda as i turned my head skyward

and i grazed her open thighs with my pupils wide

like the crinkles in my lips that wet looking at

the milky swirls around me from her supple breasts—

dripping in the birth of her daughter, now a black hole

from which blood cannot escape. the specks dote on my face as the clouds

part, and her hips lie still in waiting,

her knees rest on the ecliptic that traces the dirt

on their caps. i saw Andromeda twisting about to the hum of white dwarves

and the melody from the quasars as they radiate absurdities

through her darkened skin—she bathes her bruises

in celestial dust, soothing themselves from the burns

of the red giants; their murmurs are bold, deep,

undertaking the solar winds—burying them in particles.

i saw Andromeda, chained to the rock

by the celestial seas, leaving her hands still and bound with chains,

rusted, burned-out like the future sun; they are worn from the mist

of a thousand stars, solar systems where indeed stellar dust form the sands

that coat her pale feet, worn from treading upon the earth with undoubted purpose—

this day is hers, as she stands weeping for more, more from the foam

that kisses her face, more from the hero who claims her womanhood

whose body and muscles ripple beside her in the sky. i saw Andromeda

stern as her empire crumbled while her feet twisted

below the rising tides: her monstrous streaks of her morphing hair

rise like autumn wheat and fall like a meteorite finally landing

upon the hollowed ground; her sweat gleams upon her ripened face

when the clouds come to cover my view—her eyes whirling about

in a daze of humid emptiness, something cold yet burning like hellfire

from the Sun again, rising to take her from my sights

and bury her again below the still horizon.