146. A Reflection on Metis
A Reflection on Metis
I had seen it in her as a child.
The capacity for a deep rage.
The first time was when
she had just started walking.
We had been sitting
on the sandy shores
outside my father’s palace.
An albatross dared to steal
the piece of apple
from her clenched fingers.
In moments, this mighty bird
was flung back, as though
it was little more than
a feather, thrown into the ocean
with such power and fury
that I almost did not see it.
The way her eyes had turned
from yellow to fire.
The way her little clenched fist
held a smattering of feathers.
The second time was when
a River God had dared
to chase Leto to the point of fear
all the way from Oceanus’s palace
to the threshold of
my father’s palace.
Metis had sprung at him
like a cat waiting for prey.
When Leto and I pulled
her off him, he was screaming
in pain, long gold claw marks
across his chest.
Metis had threatened him
into silence. Promised him
worse if he ever told.
I should have known
there was an untamed violence,
a self-preservation within her bones,
like the rivers and oceans
she was born from.
It had been foolish of us
to think that such a secret,
when it came to light,
that her origin story
would not turn her
against us all.