Hera

A poem

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lying in the bathtub,
my hair swirled out behind me
like the tails of a kite — or snakes —
I think about Hera.
I think about Helen
and Estella
and Bertha
and a dozen other girls
who were probably fictional
but definitely real.
but mostly, I think about Hera.

I think about a goddess who rules over marriage
watching as her husband lauds the heroes
he sired with other women.

I think about a queen deprived of the power to rule,
forced to resort to trickery and seduction to subdue
her wild and cruel king husband.

I think about a daughter, the eldest and first to touch
immortal feet upon the ground, locked away in the sky.

I think about a mother who found her newborn
so hideous, she threw him off a mountain —
and I wonder if it was the child she found ugly,
or the memory of his father forcing himself inside her,
the fact that to other women he bore gods and demigods,
kings and princesses who would be remembered forever,
yet from the consummation…