The Hydra

“Spiny” by Aaron Lelito

Birth noise splitting,
pull the hydra by her head—
if it breaks, more will follow.

Catch claw. Yank.
Snap crunch bone neck—
it begins.

Echidna—
did she have teeth in the womb,
snake head moving,

slit pupil sealed,
knotting around herself,
jaw a razor sharp suckle promise?

(Jesus, the breast feeding.)

Did she start with one mouth,
one heart beat flutter—
unharmed:

one small, delicate,
curvature of neck
crackle thin vertebrae scales—

when did she fracture?

Two sorrows,
one breast bone,
one heart sick vessel.

Were any of the
branch split skulls
of your making?

I try to imagine
your monster mother body
when hers fell—

another child it seemed
impossible to kill
dead.

Did you have a favorite,
or love them all the same—
teach them to run

a pick
through all those twining roots,
slick coconut oil in the gaps?

Echidna,
who customized
her mourning gown,

when that brother fell
then that one?
Who held her expanse

when Typhon got locked up
under the volcano?
Who collected her bones,

put them in the ground with all the others,
let the soil suck up
her emptied out dreams—

was it you?

Juliette Givhan is a poet and occasional fiction writer who navigates identity through myths & memes. Her work appears in ANMLY Journal, Change Seven Magazine, and Two Hawks Quarterly, with forthcoming work in baest Journal, The Ice Colony, and Pidgeonholes Journal.