Gorgoneia
by Maggie Queeney

1. Days, I make myself hungry, nights
2. I am caught in hair, knotted locks,

1. that charm is drawn from incantation,
2. and most people that are killed are killed

1. by people they know. I am caught in the ruined
2. body of my mother, the bit that pulled her lips

1. back into a grin, the invisible knee that urged her
2. into mirrors, into the reflective faces

1. of infants and men. I am caught in what she took
2. for love. That incantation breaks words

1. back into sound, sound into song, a shield
2. that presses the bearer down.

1. I am caught in the eye, a wounding wound
2. that recites, the subtraction beauty radiates:

1. a halo, the rotting root of a tooth,
2. a black hole bending light.