Tiamat, the Wild Dragon,
who has her scales made from heaven
and star-born elements
made the world in her belly, tempered it
with her own fiery mind
dipped it into the colors flowing through her heart
then wrapped it in a delicate shell, fine
as a dream or a comet’s tail or a spider’s hushed silk
almost as if she knew
the we could not leave that shell
unstirred, could not resist
the pain of hatching ….

And hatch we did, parting our eager beaks to cry for secrets:

Tell me this secret Tiamat, Great Dragon,
and I will cherish it like the yolk of an egg that hatched the world:
among the fire & the ice & the iron
did you also make the dragonslayer
from the wild echoes
of your wide wide heart?

[In elementary school, Alexandra Seidel had a wonderful teacher who introduced her to the twelve labors of Hercules. This was the first Greek myth Alexandra ever read, and more followed later during five years of Latin at school, all of which left a deep impression on her mind and sometimes on her writing. Alexandra’s prose and poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Star*Line, Labyrinth Inhabitant Magazine, New Myths and others. Every once or twice, Alexandra blogs. She is never quite sure about what. Better go see for yourself.]