• When first she was born
    her mother cursed the gods
    and slew the midwife
    and opened the belly of her babe
    with long talons.
    Into her child, she
    funneled all the stars of the sky
    and sewed her up tightly
    with neat, black stitchwork.
    The child grew older
    and the radiance of the stars
    fed her with their light
    filled her with an impossible beauty
    until the Sun himself
    spying her from aloft, as
    he lazily swam across the heavens
    fell in love, and begged her mother,
    Let me have this girl-child as my bride.