She Grew Up to Be a Poet (Poem)

She Grew Up to Be a Poet

More angel than Medusa,
        no temple serpents lick

clean her ears of dark words'
        fates. No ill- or forked-tongued

Cassandra she, the child hears
        her future sure: swirls of letters

stuttered and unstrung,
        her own sweet-voiced Calliope

cajoling the spells of imagination's
        epic rides through landscapes hued

in green, metered in dotted staccato riffs.
        On horse half-harnessed,

she plucks her language branch
        till bare, verses stacked on backs

of butterflies, their wings ink-dipped,
        Greek and Latin meanings clear.

2015 © Maureen E. Doallas