The Second Sister: Creating Monsters

…they went to Psyche and said: "Oh, sister…it would be wrong for us to hide your danger from you. It is this, that the husband who comes secretly gliding into your bed at night is an enormous snake, with widely gaping jaws, a body that could coil around you a dozen times and a neck swollen with deadly poison. Perhaps you're fascinated by living here alone with your voices all day, and at night having secret and disgusting relations with a poisonous snake; if so, you are welcome to the life, but at all events we have done our duty as affectionate sisters by warning you how it must end.'
—Apuleius
I'm the one who created the monsters.
"Do you know you're in love with a great toad,' I told her.
"He's in disguise, but isn't there a touch of primeval slime about him?'
Psyche shivered, eyed me coldly. (Was I getting close?)
"I've heard he's a mutated salamander…'
"Don't elaborate,' she seethed, teacup grinding the saucer.
"Anyway, I'm off to shop — for some exotic nightwear.'
The plain truth is, I find it easy to think up monsters.
After all, I'm married to one. His idea of lovemaking
combines the techniques of a wolf and a python attacking a sheep.
That's why I spend so much time in my imagination,
that small reflective room at the top of the house.
I've written a vast epic just sitting there, day after day,
rivers of midnight-blue meandering from my pen.
I've called it "The Invisible Palace'. It's ultra-Gothic,
with magic realism and some old-fashioned romance thrown in.
To be frank, I never thought I'd spend so much of life
looking out of a window. Cloudscapes build above
the rubric of autumn hills, far cities shimmer.
…Yes, it's an odd existence, but I like it.
Despite what they say, I don't envy Psyche,
wish her the fulfilment I've missed. But I do worry
about monsters — a wolfish leer, a snake-like clinch —
just everywhere, aren't they: salivating, smiling,
their every word a forked hiss?