Euryleia
Who will sing what must be sung
in plain speech? Antiope is dead—
Molpadia’s arrow thudded through
her body— so she exited the embrace
of Theseus, whose face froze, centaur-like,
to marble-carved disbelief,
despair. Do you know what you were
saving her from, Molpadia?
Do you know how we will save
ourselves, now, with nothing to fight for?
Melanippe
All of the answers are sleeping today,
making it the perfect weather to ask why
to these unbearable becauses. Come rain,
erase us, come thunder, make our voices again
useless. Night, come back
quickly, hide us from our bodies,
cover everything that is missing.
The cloth of the sky has been twisted
and twisted, wrung, pulled taut
against itself, by hands whose thoughts
are elsewhere. No rain comes.
Hippolyta (sleeping)
She haunts. Could it be only gods
are allowed to happen once, then rest? Apart
from us, a part
of us, apart, and unconfessed.
1 comment:
Dear Elizabeth,
This is powerful. It feels like movement, starting and stopping, starting and stopping again, with all the imagery of things being frozen, unable, in the midst of battle--Theseus, the cloth of sky, the unconfessed state of Hippolyta.
"Euryleia" is my favorite, most especially the "face froze, centaur-like,/ to marble-carved disbelief,/despair." And those last two shocking lines as well. The rhythm carries the emotion, I keep reading it, and it strikes me every time.
I think these three work together very well, though I'm afloat in the web of the larger story, pleading ignorance.
Please do send more and more,
Heidi
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