Medea’s Chariot
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Red-Figure Calyx-Krater (Mixing Vessel): Medea in Chariot (A); Telephos with Baby Orestes (B), c. 400 BCE. Near the Policoro Painter (South Italian, Lucanian, active c. 400 BCE). Ceramic; diameter of mouth: 49.9 cm (19 5/8 in.); overall: 50.5 cm (19 7/8 in.); diameter of foot: 22 cm (8 11/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1991.1
She’s just left Corinth, in a witchy awestruck spectacle— her most dreadful deeds behind her
Absconding on a conjured chariot pulled by winged serpent-dragons covered in leopard print scales— lent by some distant relative of means
Her rings of shimmering sunbursts explode, blinding your magnolia vision— drawing focus from cavernous mouthfuls of dribble
Dressed in Persian armour with her helmet worn high and a double baldric crossing her dark heart— she’s a foreign enemy, exiled abroad by choice
Her escape, accomplished through the mystical arts, floating away on promises of protection— followed by the furies and ghosts she self-fashioned
When she’s had enough, she’ll perform sorcery on you with the guiltless and marvellous talent to vanish
Aimee Blackledge ©2022.
Published in Ghost Bones, 2022.
