Useless; there is no god of healing in this story.
Agamemenon —Aeschylus
Ilium
that sterile promontory
where Astanax
already has been thrown
from the battlements
my aged mother
her head in ashes
weeping my sister
in law Andromache
yet another torment
for her chiseled heart
and Helen
that Greek whore
who came
among us—call her
sister—my brother Paris
hissed—NO—no sister
would sit at her loom
when men met their
doom and all for her
weaving our fates
into the fabric of
her selfish life.
I knew it then—
when I was
beloved
of the god—
He felt like light
in the dark
damp places
of my body
but I refused to parent
another Helen or Achilleus.
Punished He cursed me back
to humanity.
No one will ever believe
You—the lord of men
Agamemnon
host of the black ships
that I am crazy
a lovely plaything
cast off from a god—
I miss his golden
voice—the curve
of his mouth
into a smile
now my world
is dark future
in your eyes.
My lord,
your wife will
kill us both
yes, this is daring when
the female shall strike down
the male
she's sharpened the blade
and sent your son to exile
your second daughter
haunting a palace
filled with furies
and the sacrifice
Iphigeneia
oh, she's alive
in Aulis
did you really think
Artemis, that moon girl goddess
would kill such a
prominent
prize?
A decade you raped
us all for Helen
now she whimpers
in her husband's tent
my brothers are dead
my beautiful brothers
and Astanax—a child
thrown from the battlements
to his broken death
what could he possibly do?
murder you with his tears?
are you satisfied
my lord
of men?
are you satisfied
when you hold
me in the dark
heat of your
lust—I don't think
of you
but remember
that once
I was the princess
of Troy
the priestess
of Apollo
not a slave
a war prize
of Agamemnon,
a man marked
for a violent death.
Oh I know Greek;
I think I know it
far too well.
Vernal Equinox
Kiyo's remembrance
and memorial
would be
inappropriate
for me
to attend.
never mind
the truth
the searing combination
of desire and memory
moving back one
calendar year
when you wrote
and asked me
to be your spring
and we met
in the greening park
eager to find the hemlock
grove and lie together
one body made from
two unlatched
like a screen door
watching each other's
breath for the pause
to heaven
and the fall then back
to earth.
Walking later
down the ice path
I hold on to you
the spring ahead
hawks above
mating erratically
we watch them
a sign
of our own
unfinished
love.
This year
your dead father
commands the day
belongs to
your ill wife
your sad son.
I cannot come
to that gathering.
I shall
instead
remember
the hawks circling
overhead
the ice on my red
shoes
the taste of your
last kiss
and how you smiled
when I told you
the tulip
was native
to Afghanistan.
They appear washed
up, given from the sea
to the earth, to us
X marks the spot
on the harbor porpoise
its open mouth revealing
teeth, skin turned to black
we have no knives with which
to cut it open and take the bones
as our treasure.
The harbor seal, small
flippers tucked under
its brain still in place
with the spine bleached
it is dead
we are alive
and I ask what else we will
find?
In the distance walking to the path
the third lies
head turned
beak down,
black feathers moving
in the wind.
cormorant.
Time moves slowly among the dead
we stumble over rocks sit behind
the dunes in spring silence
I would stay this way,
nestled against you
small and safe
in this moment
where my breath
comes on its own
I want to extend myself
out over the water,
but can only send small
messages from the confines
of my heart.
Take the dead
tear out their bones
and like Cassandra,
I will read their entrails
to engender our future,
I will make a map of vertebrae
to find my way back
here, where your heavy
heart acknowledges
my longing
where you reach me
through the sound
of your lovely
measured voice
where I see your pain
clearly without
judgement
and mine own
spread still like those three
dead, decaying
around us.
Facets A Literary Magazine (Volume VI, Issue 1)
February 2006