Lamia

She was bewitching then. On
the windowsill she sat, an arm
across her dragon, gaze turned
from the caves and deserts of his face.
At her throat hung the gold bones
of a fish, and in her hair
a small companion floated, gave
the sun back to the room in spines.

Fingers whispering along the sash,
she looked at me, eyes a thin
mountain wind. I felt my heart
consumed in me by birds that ate
and soared away before she moved.
The dragon laid a cloud of smoke
across the table as she stepped
from his coils to cross the room.

“That was good,” she said. “Yum.”
Then she plucked out her eye,
put it gently in my hand.
I’ve kept it all these years.
I can see through it almost as if
it were my own. But it rattles in me
like a window in a dining room
when the guests have eaten and are gone.