Leda

Afterwards, pregnant,

she moved into a third-floor apartment

and spent her cash on reprints.

And in them, the men,

the mythmakers, who heard her story

told in the bird’s words,

turned her—in picture after picture—

into tragic furniture or

a doll-body draped

around the roundness of the god

of gods, whose extended neck

lanced across her belly

and pinned her under

a mountain of feathers.

While the creatures grew and dabbled

within her, she drew portraits of herself

not as woman or beast,

but as machine—

a windmill with lines as hard

as her jaw and blades spotlighted

with wind lines.

To be efficient, quotidian, intact—

not Dutch nor quixotic:

this was her wish.

Flowerless, her landscapes were filled

with fissures in the earth, outlines

of cliffs as broad as giant’s legs,

and a narrow pass between them.

Forty days later, a twitching

and bustling inside the eggs

broke the spell of her sleep,

and she watched the creatures peck

and head-poke the encasings,

their progress slow,

more excruciating than exquisite.

She imagined all of them into existence:

chicks within a close-quartered mine,

tapping at the veins

where any light is a surprise

to newborn eyes and the slightest glint

might be the first sighting

of gold or an opening.