Maggie Dullea
Andromethian
I can’t quit my chained maiden
Who pliés around the welkin
From stone to stone, and crater
To crater, hypergolic. She spins
And laughs, I swell with love. I call
Her a reminicantagonist, a futurephiliac
But as she always does, she floats
Ahead. Skipping, stone to stone,
Alpheratz towards Canis and his son.
She knows what will come next,
She’s lived it before. This is her
Purgatory. Andromeda and Canis,
Jezebel and Jehu, my women and
The wolves that eat her. Over and
Over she comes to me, a single
Match in her silken palms. She
Runs it against my desiccated elbow
And its flame becomes our north star.
She dances with paleticocity, she will
Love, and yet the dogs always find her:
Analgesiacally, angelisctically painful.