Anthropophagus Beasts

Of all the beasts of the wild
our senses are dulled to simple vision,
sometimes hearing, but we have no
night-sight,
and yet it is the smell which announces them,
the rotting flesh of our fathers
and our sacrifices,
Andromeda's sweet-smelling decay
that drives Perseus to immortalize the monster
in Parian marble like Galatea.
I assume Medusa's statues were made
of metamorphic rock, with crystalline arrangement,
because igneous is shot through with imperfections
and sedimentary would crumble beneath the gaze.
But all of this is beside the point, which is:
Anthropophagus beasts are not of one kind.
Some stalk and some crawl and some slither
and some have the fire in their beating hearts
while others must make do with the worship of Sol Invictus.
Let me not be eaten by reptilian predators.