True Myth

Tell a child she is composed of parts (her Ojibway quarters, her German half-heart) she'll find the existence of harpies easy to swallow. Storybook children never come close to her mix, but manticores make great uncles, Sphinx a cousin she'll allow, centaurs better to love than boys—the horse part, at least, she can ride. With a bestiary for a family album she's proud. Her heap of blankets, her garbage grin, prove she's descended of bears, her totem, it's true. And that German witch with the candy roof, that was her ancestor too. If swans can rain white rape from heaven, then what is a girl to do? Believe her Indian eyes, her sly French smile, her breast with its veins skim milk blue— She is the myth that is true.