Basilisk

Everything burns to cinders 

in the presence of a little king,

crested serpentine, crowned

in dishonour as it advances a wildfire

in the singe of toxic words. 
 

A basilisk is sibalant 

even from the incubation 

of a toad's egg: it is possible,

I suppose, to be born monstrous, or

to see the world itself, from youth, 

as poisonous, as an invitation

to destruction from a nursery of despair. 
 

A basilisk has shrugged off 

the spears of men, brought death

or driven them to madness,

a hydrophobia, to die of thirst - 

though I have never been afraid of water,

its tumbled energy of memory, under

and over, the motion of fluid; 

what it washes away, the gentle lap

of a loss of perspective. 
 

A basilisk is not invincible,

only raised to think so, quite a shock then, 

to find its nemesis in a weasel.

Both with noxious breath, of course, 

so that we can curse the very air,

the unfathomable, the conveniency 

of the unseen: we like to fill in the blanks,

fabricate taxidermies of motley parts

from an assortment of creatures,

to declare - here is the villain - and 

foregoing honesty - we make our monsters,

I tell a story where you are the basilisk

and I am the weasel, 

how we kill one another in an alchemy of ashes. 
 

Image from wikimedia commons: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hane_basilisk.jpg

Also on Twitter: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wenceslas_Hollar_-_The_basilisk_and_the_weasel.jpg