She burst out of, not the womb,

but ancient skull.
An enigma.
Like the frail kiss of the butterfly’s wing along
collarbone rounded by rushing river waters.

She walks in a daze,
looking below her at this fickle nation of
humanity, little children who pray to her when she herself
dares not declare wisdom upon trembling fingers.

She finds companionship in the owl,
this creature that they call a great hunter,
with the quickest of talons and sharpest of beaks, yet
under the mounds of fluff and feather is just another
coward, afraid of the all-knowing eyes of the day.

And can she even call her father a father? This great God
of a man who knew not her presence, only the pain
that she caused, so sure and so strong that he was willing
to bring ax unto his own head, expecting nothing of it
but the welcoming blackness of eternal sleep only to
wake with
her
beside him, fully grown without a childhood to make her
mistakes in and fully garbed in clothes that were
too long, too regal for her liking.

But yet
still she puts on the iron breastplate and
accepts the dead calf from below
this facade that she hopes will never be seen
by the all-knowing eyes of the day.