Metamorphoses
​     by Elijah Patterson

They told me Medusa was hideous.
Hideous, so men would come from miles 
around to watch her in her bedchamber,
to see what the touch of other men had done
to the coils of her hair, the softness of her skin,
the contours of her lips.

The halls of her home are filled with statues of
uninvited men.
They pile up just around corners,
reaching for her shower curtain, 
slipping behind her while her fingers 
trace the walls toward the lightswitch.
Men with mouths half-open,
tips of tongues licking their hungry lips,
pants just undone, one hand
beginning the plunge down their abdomen,
toes curling against the floorboard, and then--

I took three years of Latin in school.
Three years of translations of translations,
and no one would explain to me:
Why did Medusa have to die?

And why did these men with flesh turned to shale
have the temerity to look so very, very surprised?