As Andromeda, I practiced
lapidary,
cut my bare foot on the nautilus shell
to keep the sea monster sated
with my daily gift of blood.
I was a docile daughter. Mother photographed me
endlessly on the same scalloped edge
where I’d been conceived.
There was danger in her
declaration of my beauty, which she claimed surpassed
the winsomeness of underwater nymphs.
She was the rock
I was chained to, my arms bound behind me.
I came to feel
at home with the monster’s perpetual breath on my toes,
