Our mother bore six babies in one birth.
Each ovary produced three daughters, same
as self. She loosed our legend on the earth,
by issue hideous and triplet name.
We three are Graeae for our ashen tone,
who share among us all one tooth, one eye.
Our sisters transform voyeurs into stone –
they’re dreadful Gorgons and they petrify.

We’re female demons and we’re proto-freaks.
Before the switch of witchcraft we were first
among the ugly. Mother’s plasma shrieks
in us with every pulse like something cursed,
and from our teats flows milk that’s thick as pus
to nourish offspring bred like Pegasus.