There, by the sidewalk,

You think you hear hissing.

Only the wind? 

Perhaps, or is it

The crown of vipers 

Beneath the hood of a passerby.

Her python eyes darting to and fro

Behind shaded, plain sunglasses.

 

Greedy eyes leer at pretty women,

Catcalls litter the alleys like the empty beer cans.

Baritone voices twisted and cruel,

Unforgiving like the smiles,

Announce themselves to unwanting victims.

Like hyenas they chortle and bark

At the poor zebras and gazelles,

Who are only looking to stay out of harm's way.

They never give a second look to the lioness,

Careless as children, they are.

They do not see her,

An adder disguised,

Appearing to simply be,

A common garden snake, watching and waiting.

 

She remembered,

This was how it was,

Hundreds of years ago,

Those Gods were the same.

Arrogant and mighty.

She remembered,

The Sea God trapped her

In the temple of her mistress

Athena,

Her savior.

An assumed curse,

In reality a blessing.

Eyes that froze tormentors in stone.

A circlet of snakes on her brow.

Scales to replace the violated flesh.

 

A hyena strikes

His beady eyes shining

Colder than the stars.

“Please ...don't!”

Her struggle unnoticed,

Her cries unheard,

By all but one.

Medusa approaches,

The hood falling away,

Hissing fills the alleyway.

The scavengers turn,

Faces that once held triumph,

Now hold bone chilling fear.

“Let her go”

A voice so soft,

Surely could not belong

To a beast such as this?

The men stand rigid

Fear’s perfume haunts the air.

As a hand with

Taloned fingertips

Slips out of the sweatshirt,

Reaches and slides 

The cheap sunglasses 

Away from the granite gaze.

The hyenas turn 

One by one

Into the stone portraits 

Of monsters.

 

Medusa

Ender of men,

Daughter of Athena

Ugly only to the ugly of heart

Sufferer to the whims of gods

An angel to the women of Greece

 

Athena gave her a gift

To protect herself from the cruel.

She wasn’t the true monster.