Mirror, Mirror

Here's a non-mythological poem for a change, but one still premised on being someone or something else. (Perhaps both, in this case.)

    Mirror, Mirror

You look at me every day
but only think you see yourself.
You don’t even realize
I’m the reverse of you:
my right is your left,
my lie, your truth.

Sirens

I'm continuing my mythology series.  The Sirens sang beautifully and lured ships onto the rocks surrounding their isle.  They are pictures different ways by different authors, as beautiful women or as monstrous birds with human heads.  I chose the latter for this poem and wondered what it felt like to be them.

     Sirens

We sing our lonely song
to bring us the company
we crave, but when a ship
comes too close, it wrecks
upon the same rocks that keep
us from leaving this barren isle.

(Yes, we may be part bird,
but we cannot fly as far
as what we long for.)

We are left with nothing
but corpses to feed our hunger -
or survivors too battered
to be lovers. If only one,
would look at our womanly faces
and not our vulture bodies,
then sing with us instead of scream,
we would eat some other meat
and live in harmony.

But the only other sounds
we know is the lapping
of waves
and the screech
of gulls
who gather round till our
feast is finished and we must
sing our song again.

Atalanta

Here's the race as seen by Atalanta.  I'm not sure it's a companion poem to the Hippomenes piece.  She just said what she wanted to say. The words led me where they wanted to go, so I feel less in control of how this poem may or may not fit in.  (Future drafts may take on more conscious shaping.)

     Atalanta

Mother said to play hard to get
and the boys would lose their heads
over me – and she was as right
as right can be. Once I stopped
running after them, they started
running after me.

It was then I realized the race
mattered more than the racers
and the coursing more than the course.
My feet led me where I had to go,
moving me so fast,
the world seemed slow.

Until I began to tire of leading
the way, of hearing nothing
but the breeze of my going
and the lonely music
of my own breath.
Running was too easy
and too hard,
so when I saw
those golden apples,
though the boy was nothing
special, he gave me a reason
to rest.

Hippomenes

This one's about Hippomenes, a young man who run a race with Atalanta by tossing three golden apples from Aphrodite in her path.  As the winner, he won the right to marry her; the losers were beheaded.

           Hippomenes

O Aphrodite, you call yourself
Love’s goddess, but you gave me
Nothing but a forced affection.
Atalanta stopped in her course
For your golden apples, rich
And glittering, and not for me.
And on our wedding night,
She gave herself to her agreement
And not to a beloved husband
So I never got to know the soul
Behind the painted smile
Or the pulse behind
The perfect breast.

I know I am partially to blame,
Praying to you as if she were
A prize to win rather than
A person to be prized.
But you, a goddess,
Should have known better.
That’s why I never gave you
My promised thanks.

So now you punish me
For ingratitude and turn me
Into a lonely lion who,
The old wives say,
Can roar and rule, but
Can never truly mate.
And I ask you –
What difference
will it make?