Melusine at Libuše's Bath
It seems cruel, she thinks, to have the window so small and so low. But then nothing is personal, and very little cannot be solved with a soak.
The river looks like ice. Just how she prefers it. If she finds steaming water, carried gingerly, she waits until it’s cool. Because of this she is called
a monster; she hears murmurs through the walls. Contented as a slumbering dragon, she swims in sweetwater when no one sees her escape,
breaking and breaking the waves. Everyone thinks it’s the tails that cause the shock and flight; but it’s her wings. Too bright, too other. Unfolded, they hover
above her as if two mystical creatures attended her back. Not this small window, then. But one day, another portal, another revelation, will watch
her rise into the liquid sky.
