Sandi Stromberg

 Medusa’s Twenty-first Century Reflections

Head of Medusa, by Peter Paul Rubens

“[Writing] will give her back her goods,
her pleasures, her organs, her immense bodily territories
which have been kept under seal.”
— The Laugh of the Medusa, Hélène Cixous

Oh, Rubens, please. Enough with the snakes.
You carried yourself away
painting them, obsessed
with their sensuousness,
ominous coloring and coils. Yes, they are
a tribute to your talent as a painter.
They could crawl right off the canvas
and fill an Indiana Jones snake pit.

And don’t get me started on how my name
was given to the deceptive genus
of snaky-tentacled jellyfish.

I wasn’t pleased to be made a Gorgon, you know,
to have two sisters with the same undesired hair,
to have a look that turned men into stone.
A woman wants to look her best, but
mythology can be so maligning.

Take a look at what my name means
in Greek: guardian, protectress. Nothing here
to explain why I was branded
dangerous or evil. Athena punished me, the woman,
for Poseidon’s rape in her temple. As though I asked
for that transgression.

Nothing’s really changed over the centuries.
It’s always the woman’s fault.