Andromeda

a little star becomes a starry wheel 

    rolling in huge silence     toward us

announced by meteoric children 

       flashing to nobody’s rescue 

the catastrophe 

will be continuous

           too big to be felt

thinking    I don’t want to

the bride approaches glittering  

       speechless

later she’ll wonder     must every 

                wedding be a bloodbath

spidersilk plus cosmic debris equals 

      cobweb     veil of andromeda

      spiraling from interplanetary cloud

               into her room

brightly particulate 

in slanted light 

     dust in the clouded eye      

                 of told you so

eye that sees

     mother trail bright waves 

            across her wrist     no one 

                 more beautiful      all mothers 

say these things       but mother not        

where the gods can hear

that’s how you end up wheeling 

      upside down      through heaven

             nailed to your glittery throne

. . .

clink of chains 

andromeda’s monster rises  

         where the sea roars & whitens

                  time for the sacred wedding

or feast

perhaps the god thinks 

it will be a treat for him 

but what can he do, Cetus

with this little breathing thing

              finless     earthy     no part 

                           of his usual diet

someone should ask if he might rather 

        sink               silent as the bride

                      into the starless deep            

. . .

       already andromeda 

     shone like a dropped 

       earring

       over the departures 

           of certain huge animals

   slow-moving     dusty as old rugs 

leaving a remnant bitterness 

        of wild cousins     missing

                their phantom familiars

osage orange     honeylocust   coffeetree 

      all this puzzling unsweetness     

          is only fidelity to extinct 

          desire     the austere preference 

                          of vanished monsters                                 

apple will you grow bitter 

 without your bees 

        your bears      gorging on windfall

               in abandoned orchards

what is a word for  

 animals that wish

. . .

she wishes to have 

a serious belief in the timely approach 

of the winged bridegroom

       spiraling down    

 meteoric flash of his shield

eyes closed      waving the fatal head      

  he’ll say don’t look

           and she won’t

Click here to read Martha McCollough on the writing of this poem: