Rachel Reynolds

BY THE SEA

Bit by a dog!

   Myth come true!

I feel like a fruit.

   I think like a bone.

My thigh throb belongs

   to a Greek hero.

My red tights bleed

   right through.

The wound waves

   a yellow banner

under lavender clouds.

   A tricolon of canines

jeweled with blood.

   I’m like poor Scylla

in her dancing skirt

   of teeth & dog fur.

There's the wound

   of birth I gave mother

& the wound of death

   she gave me.

Of the wound of sex

   I'll not speak,

nor to the gape-mouth

   carp at my feet.

Now I have a story

   to tell the loom.

Look over there.

   Scylla's in dog dress.

The men all stare.

   Tongues loll & tails

wag where she strolls

   the surf’s scar.

Rachel Reynolds' poems have appeared in publications such as the Rattling Wall, the Redlands Review, and riverSedge. She is a recent graduate of the MFA program in Poetry at Purdue University, where she served as Poetry and Art Editor of Sycamore Review.