Equator Sky, Manila Bay

Here, the brightest constellation

   is Hydra, the Water Snake, named

for the half-woman, half-reptile

   whom Hercules slew with the help

of  Iolaus, his charioteer. Imagine

   the sound of so many heads screaming — 

the long, shrill bays of an angry woman

   times twenty — and the smell of birth,

of all origins, that followed Hydra

   as she rose from her fetid swamp. Iolaus

was strategic, went straight for the bowels

   instead of the mouth, burned her center

before the head. When her fundament

   was reduced to ash, only then could

Hydra be silenced. Hera, enraged

   that Hercules was able to slay the creature

she had raised in order to destroy him,

   flung the corpse of the decapitated,

maimed Hydra into the sky, lest she be

   forgotten. Hydra’s blood, unstoppable,

became hot gas; her screams rose

   and fell until they were radio waves;

and her wild flailing was fixed

   into points of radiance. Hera was right

to hurl those stars here, above this bay,

   so close to where the earth is bisected,

a place where Hydra’s mirror image

   glosses the water, where dense blooms

of  algae flourish on the nitrogen surface,

   thousands of wild heads and arms

devouring ammonia, cyanide, and sewage

   as fast as we can produce them,

this hydra, emblem of insatiable desire.